The Mayfly and the Mountain
by Lornesgoldenhair
Summary: This is the third in the series The Mayfly and the Mountain and takes place a little while after Clara has reattuned herself to being properly 'alive' again in 'Human Beings 101'. She's seeing the positive about being mortal, but the Doctor is starting to struggle with the reality of her regained mortality as various signs of aging start to catch up with her.
1. Chapter 1

He was watching from the doorway, fairly certain she was aware of him, but keeping still and silent anyway as she preened in front of her dresser. Three mirrors of course. At first he'd found it hard to understand why she spend so much time there now, but then eventually she had explained, adding that as a man she didn't really expect him to 'get it.'

But he sort of did. Understand her fascination with her features. He did it himself for a while after each regeneration, after decades as one man, suddenly, on the surface, another. Change. He would change and have to relearn his face, his expressions, his body.

Clara hadn't changed even when she wanted to. For four hundred years her appearance remained the same. Her hair never grew, her nails remained the same length, she'd tried dyes and cuts and even tattoos but nothing remained longer than a beat of her heart. Now she brushed her hair out each day and noted its length had increased. Now she nurtured her nails and wore different polish and cursed if one broke. It was intriguing and new, just like the other possibilities a living life could offer. She was embracing it wholeheartedly, bravely, just like he knew she would. As always she was stronger than him, more adaptable.

He saw her glance up into the central mirror.

'You standing there again?' she teased, 'You're becoming creepy. I'm only brushing my hair.'

'It looks longer,' he said as it fell from her brush across her shoulders. It looked a little like it had when he had first met her, all that time ago.

'It is,' there was pride in her voice, 'grown a good couple of inches maybe? I was thinking of colouring it, just a shade up, more golden, what do you think?'

'Do you really expect me to have an opinion on that?' the Doctor sighed as he crossed the room and took her hair in his hands. Gently he ran his long fingers through it, releasing the smell of her shampoo into the air. Clara purred a little and he carried on, watching her blissful face in the mirrors, three Clara's, all of them his. He felt her presence calm him from the thoughts that had kept him awake all night. 'I suppose you want me to take us to some sort of Space Hairdresser?' he asked lightly.

'Yes please.'

His hands continued to work.

'In the meantime just put it in a ponytail,' she held up a band. He didn't yet want to relinquish her hair but she raised an eyebrow at his hesitance to encourage him on. With a small protest he wound her hair and flicked the band back and over, about to release her when something caught his eye.

'What?' she asked when he paused. He leaned over her and appeared to carefully extract something from the top of her head. 'Please tell me I didn't pick up some weird alien parasite on that last trip, I mean I don't feel itchy but…'

'You have a grey hair,' he said.

A pause as conflicting emotions passed over her face. 'Really!?' she asked, glancing down at her hands. Then she laughed lightly, 'well its four centuries overdue, about time I sprouted one. Just pull it out. No big deal.'

'You aren't alarmed?' he asked carefully after seeing her reaction. He'd seen the fuss ordinary humans made about hair. Baldness, greyness, it could throw them into quite the panic.

'Of what, one hair? That's what dye is for,' she very deliberately caught his eye to reassure him but her jollity seemed forced and he sensed something in her speech which worried him, a tone he couldn't identify but which felt like a lie. As per instruction he plucked the hair and she reached up to take it, study it. She drew it out to its full length between her fingers and looked at it accusingly.

'Space hairdresser will sort you out, and any buddies you might have,' she said narrowing her eyes, but the other muscles in her face were giving her away. She dropped the hair to one side of her and returned to her ministrations at the dresser with a less steady hand.

Age.

It was not something she'd had to deal with before. She had been in prime condition since being Extracted, frozen for four hundred years. Once rescued time had started again for her and her body but it had only been a couple of months, not long enough yet to see real change in her body. This was the first sign, a single grey hair. Time used to pass without leaving its mark and now here it was reminding her that this had changed, that every second took a second from her lifespan. She'd been alive just a few weeks and Time was very deliberately showing its presence.

'Grey's not so bad,' she muttered when the Doctor did not move, 'You've got lots of it.'

'Most versions of me do, I like to think its distinguished.'

'That's not true, you were gutted to be grey again.'

'Well I got used to it,' he admitted.

'Space hairdresser,' she said catching his eye again. 'We need to go there.'

'What now?'

'It's been upgraded to an emergency,' Clara explained. 'And it will make me happy,' she wheedled. 'Go, programme co-ordinates, I'll be there in a minute.'

The Doctor sighed. This was not how he had planned the afternoon, researching instead a wonderful far flung and recently discovered planet with intriguing cave systems and venomous butterflies. However, he had been around Clara long enough to know about her innate vanity and also her stubbornness and as such knew he had little chance if he protested, especially now the grey hair had been spotted. He chewed on his thumb as he left the room and hesitated in the corridor to look back. He saw her lean closer to the mirror, checking her features, her skin and her eyes and her hair.

It was only one grey hair, he told himself, it meant nothing. Clara disagreed.

She combed her fingers along her parting, hunting, gnawing on her lower lip as she focused. After a minute or so she sat back, her expression no less worried and from where he stood he could almost feel her anxious heartbeat. The Doctor's own sped up in sympathy. He knew the significance of the hair even if he tried to deny it or smother facts with humour. It wasn't her vanity, it was fear. Clara had been reminded that she was aging, and Clara was scared. So was he.

He pushed his thoughts aside again just as he did every night when he lay awake watching her sleep; watching each breath fill and leave her body, imagining it as nature's countdown. He buried the nagging ideas and went to the console room as instructed, he knew a good place to go, she could have a whole makeover if she wanted to, if it would make her forget what she'd just realised, if they could both just continue on as things were without acknowledging Time.

The Doctor found himself loitering outside a café in what could be described as the fashion capital of the quadrant they were currently parked in. He nursed something approximating to coffee at a rickety table opposite the boutiquey Space Hairdresser Clara was visiting. She'd been in there for hours and he could have just hopped forward in the TARDIS to pick her up but he needed the stillness, the thinking time. He'd tried to ignore the thoughts the grey hair had given rise to but when they refused to budge he decided to just allow them to run free for a while and hopeful burn themselves out.

They had been so happy. When Clara's pulse returned it was all about having a future again and being together. Admittedly adjusting to her body functioning after a form of stasis for so long had been difficult and not just physically. They both knew there were implications for her lifespan but neither wanted to address that. The days were about visiting places, eating good food, making love and absolutely not putting a dampener on any of it by thinking about death, mortality, age, infirmity or anything else along those lines.

But he had to didn't he, as the one who would be left behind? He had to think about all of it, again. He'd already been through the loss of Clara once and look what that had done to him. It would never survive it twice. Or would he? Would being with her give him the strength? Now that he had her, now that he could tell her the things he needed to, would he be able to cope with loss the way everyone else seemed to? Could he bear to find out?

And Clara. Wise Clara who at first accepted she was a human with a human lifespan, taking risks and bravely facing the Raven. Clara who then adjusted best she could to immortality she never asked for; now she was mortal again. Her world tipped over and then tipped again. She thought she had hundreds of years, now she had around sixty. She'd spoken to him of her confusion as they skated on a frozen pond on a trip to Victorian London. Nothing was simple, not for either of them, and neither knew what was for the best.

The Doctor put his head in his hands and let his fingers scratch circles on his scalp. What was for the best? The thing that hurt them least? There were ways to be immortal, he knew that, but was that just his own desperation talking. Would Clara grasp at it when her aging body let her down? Was it ever right that she should live longer than any other being? He heard himself groan in frustration.

'Coffee that good?' Clara asked from where she stood above him. He looked up to find her resplendent, hair in soft wide curls, more golden than before but retaining her authentic deep brunette. She glowed.

'You look beautiful,' he said.

'Correct thing to say,' she sat down opposite him and smiled, 'I feel better, sorry about before, all panicky about a grey hair. I mean one grey hair.' She shook her head in disbelief.

His own smile twitched in return but couldn't quite make it, 'Its fine, I understand.'

Clara pursed her lips and fiddled with the table top, drawing her nail along a groove in the surface. 'So, let's have an adventure,' she said out of nowhere.

He raised his eyebrows. 'What?'

'We've been travelling for a couple of months but we haven't got ourselves into trouble…'

'That's a good thing, we're keeping our heads down remember. Reapers. Time Lords. Lots of enemies for the pair of us.'

'There's only so much shopping and sunbathing I can do,' she said in a pleading tone.

'No Clara, we have to be careful, we've upset a lot of people Extracting you, stealing a TARDIS, running away. Time itself is coming after us…'

'You're so dramatic, Time isn't a conscious being, it hasn't decided to come get us.'

'Reapers are conscious, and what we did, even though the paradox is sealed up they are angry enough to find us elsewhere.'

Clara tapped her fingers on the table and squinted around the area they sat in, a little square, a few peaceful aliens going about their business. 'I miss the chase,' she said, 'The adrenaline, I've not had a good shot of adrenaline since I got my heartbeat back…'

'Clara…' he said warningly.

'Oh come on, just a small adventure, you love it, you're just being all overprotective again and we agreed we wouldn't do that this time. I make my own decisions…'

'Clara…'

'… and you make yours, but one thing I know about you is you never sit so still for so long….'

'Clara!' the Doctor hissed suddenly. 'Be quiet and look at me, at me Clara, not over there.'

'What?'

'You may have just got your wish.'

'Clara's face performed an odd expression between excitement and concern.

'You're right I don't usually sit so still so long, and sitting out here may have been a mistake,' he drew his sunglasses out of one pocket and casually slipped them on, his gaze moving to behind Clara where an alleyway looked particularly dark and foreboding.

'Why?' Clara whispered.

'It's allowed someone to send for backup, someone looking for us I suspect.'

'What kind of back up?' Clara asked.

'Judoon,' he said shortly and inched his chair back a little way. Clara's face had gone pale. 'You remember where the TARDIS is?' he asked.

'Yes, but I'll be with you, right?'

'That's the plan,' he said taking her hand, 'but we might have to split up, whatever you do don't waste time looking back or trying to take smart short cuts, just keep moving.'

'Ok,' she said, bracing herself.

'Ready?'

'Yes.'

'Run!'

They shot up from the table in unison and began running down the length of the long and cobbled road to where the TARDIS had been parked around a mile away. To each side of them aliens moved hastily out of their paths while those who were to late were shouldered and bumped. A few swore at the couple but then changed their tune when then Judoon came thundering down the street in military formation. The Doctor rounded a sharp corner, and felt Clara's grip on his hand slip a little. He broke his own rule and looked around to find her just beside him and keeping pace but struggling to do so, more than he had ever seen her before. Her breath came almost too rapidly and she was flushed and rasping. He felt sweat in her palm and tugged on her to keep up. Clara stumbled and fell forward a little forcing him to stop briefly and get her upright while the Judoon soldiers closed the gap.

'Clara! What is it?'

'I… I… don't know…' she heaved out, 'Can't… keep… up… breathless.'

'Don't talk, run,' he ordered and pulled her forward again, drawing his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket should any of the Judoon get close. This was standard stuff, a chase to the TARDIS and an escape. Normally she would be ahead of him, fast on her short legs, something he could never understand, but within seconds she was trailing again.

The march of the judoon was relentless and they were catching. Mercifully the TARDIS was in sight and opened her doors to them immediately even though there were still a few hundred yards to close. Clara was really struggling now and the Doctor paused to scoop her upwards with one arm while propelling both of them back towards the ship. In his other hand the sonic sent blasts towards the soldiers, stunning and temporarily staggering them, slowing their progress for a few moments at a time.

At last they got to the TARDIS and Clara stumbled over the threshold while the doors banged shut and the Doctor quickly punched escape co-ordinates into the console. The ship entered the vortex and silence fell over the console room.

The sound of hard breathing from the steps up to the balcony attracted the Doctors attention. He wiped his own brow of some minimal sweat and sat next to Clara.

'Are you ok?' he asked.

She was leaning with her head down between her knees and when she spoke her voice croaked a little, her breath still ragged.

'I.. don't know,' she admitted slowly getting control of her breathing. Her head came up and he could see how red her cheeks were, how the sweat gathered on her top lip and beaded her forehead. Her newly coiffed hair stuck to her face and neck. 'I never get like that that,' she said, 'I've always been able to run.'

'And you wanted more adventures?' the Doctor said. She smiled in response but remained looking worried.

'Maybe I just got too used to not having to breathe?'

'Maybe.' His voice was flat as he struggled to hide his concern.

'Maybe my adrenal glands haven't woken up yet.'

'Possible.'

'Everything else is working OK.'

'We thought so,' he agreed.

'Is this to do with the Extraction?' she asked suddenly, 'Have I lost all my fitness levels?'

'You were frozen, nothing should have deteriorated,' he explained.

Clara passed a hand through her hair and tried to smooth it into place again. 'Everything aches,' she said, 'My legs were like lead and no matter how much I wanted to speed up I just didn't have any strength. Now they're like jelly. What could it be?'

'Virus? Something contagious?' The Doctor chewed the inside of his cheek with anxiety. 'It could be all number of things I suppose,' he said, thinking out loud, 'It's possible that maybe the last two or three months have been enough for your fitness to decline as an aftereffect of Extraction, we don't truly know how it works. You won't decline while frozen but it could go twice as fast once you're out.'

'Well I don't feel ill, so I think virus is out. And I guess I haven't exactly been hitting the gym,' she said, 'The only work out I get is…'

The Doctor raised his eyebrows and silenced her before he smiled a little shyly. 'You flatter me,' he said. Clara took his hand but he could feel the tremble of her tired muscles through it. He frowned again. Why had she been so out of condition?

She was clearly wondering the same thing. 'Wait…' she said eyes widening, 'If my body was doing that, losing its fitness twice as fast to sort of make up for the frozen time, would other things be like that too, like…'

'Like what?' he asked still only paying half a mind to what she said as he tried to work out the question.

'Speeded up. Like aging,' Clara said. He turned to her slowly as she went on, afraid to look in her eyes, 'I didn't age and now maybe I'm ageing too fast? Hence the grey.' A look of abject horror crossed her face and the Doctor felt his hearts contract.

Maybe. It was a possibility. Long term stasis of any kind could cause these types of problems, especially in space. Why should Extraction be different? His thoughts rambled on, trying to find reasons it wasn't that way and coming up with very little.

'I doubt that Clara,' he said. 'It was only one grey hair. I don't think it's that at all,' her posture relaxed a little but he didn't think she was entirely convinced.

'Phew… that's good to hear,' she said, 'It's been bad enough with the grey hair today.' Her voice was brittly upbeat. 'Ok, shower time.' The Doctor watched her pull herself up by the banister of the steps and make her way down the corridor to their room. She was rubbing at her back as she went. Clara almost never complained of muscle aches and pains. She didn't need to lever herself up from the stairs.

Clara. Clara, Clara. What was going on? What had he done? Had he Extracted her and then saved her from the Raven again, only to cause more problems? Given her her heartbeat only to curse her with accelerated aging? How accelerated? Could it be stopped? Was Time going to exact revenge for his meddling and take her from him early again? He knew from experience how difficult time was to defy. If a person was to die young there was very often no way to change that. If Time didn't want Clara Oswald to live it would surely find a way. It was already angry with him, now it was lashing out in its vengeance.

The Doctor sat on the step with a sick feeling in his guts and his mind racing. It was a fear he hadn't felt for centuries and one he associated only with her. He had to calm down. He didn't have enough evidence. A grey hair and a lack of fitness did not a disaster make. Yet. He shouldn't worry her. He would just keep an eye on things, do some subtle research. Watch for any other signs and keep her safe. He began a mantra in his head, tried to focus and calm himself.

It would be OK. If there was something wrong, he could fix it. If Clara's life was at stake, he could save her.

He could save her. He had to save her. He was the Doctor and he saved people.

Especially his Clara; he still had a duty of care.


	2. Chapter 2

With the Judoon making an appearance in an otherwise peaceful environment, the Doctor was forced to travel more carefully and he was actually rather grateful for the excuse, meaning as it did that he could keep an eye on Clara. Weeks passed. No more grey hairs, but that didn't count as reassuring when any potential culprits had just been dyed in the hairdresser. So instead he found himself peering closely at her skin, or absently stroking the back of her hand, not with affection, but in order to ascertain its youthfulness. Did she still feel the same? Was her skin as elastic? He became obsessive.

After a while Clara noticed. Initially she had been reassured by him when he had said accelerated aging was an impossibility. After several weeks of him closely observing her hair, skin, mobility and fitness she had worked it out. She knew he was worried. So she told him he was being ridiculous but he could see her anxiety was close to the surface. The pair tried to hide it from each other and lie their way into reassuring their partner there was nothing to worry about. It failed. The Doctor was used to hiding his feelings, Clara was less adept. Finally she had lost her temper when he casually pinched her on the back of the wrist and timed how long it took for her skin to snap back into place.

'Ow!'

'Sorry.'

'What the hell are you doing?' she slammed her book shut.

'I…'

'Doctor,' Clara rubbed the back of her hand. 'My skin is perfectly springy, as springy as ever, and no I haven't erupted into wrinkles overnight either. Stop pinching and peering and following me about making calculations, it's really, _really,_ ' she repeated for emphasis, 'unnerving,' she finished weakly.

'Sorry,' he said again. He turned and allowed her to get on with reading her book, but at the same time scribbled down the calculation about her skin's elasticity. It was still young, which was a relief. Skin was one of the first things to age in a human, and hers remained youthful.

He heard her sigh. 'I saw that,' she said. 'You said the aging thing wasn't a possibility. You're not acting like it's not a possibility. In fact you're convincing me it is.'

'Sorry,'

'Is it or isn't it?' she asked a little snappily. 'Not that I believe it could be…' she trailed off.

'I… probably not, no,' he passed a hand through his hair, rumpling it.

'Probably not? Yes or no?' she pushed, her tone becoming slightly strained, 'What's the matter with you? '

'Nothing,' the Doctor said, a slight defensiveness in his voice. He felt anxiety churn inside him. Clara stared at him long enough for him to take the hint, but he failed to do so and left her no choice but to close her book and stand. Even he could see she was irritable around the subject of aging but she refused to speak to him about it at any length. The significance weighed heavily on both their minds and he knew Clara was searching her features as often and as closely as he did whenever she got a chance. The Doctor watched her wrestle with whether she wanted to discuss the subject further… and decide against it. It was too difficult. Mortality.

Clara stalked off to the kitchen as best someone with short legs could stalk and the Doctor returned to his blackboard, setting down calculations in Gallifreyan quickly and methodically. He finally had enough observations to calculate. He was working out the possibility behind an Extraction leading to accelerated aging once reversed and spent a good few minutes scribbling before he realised. He couldn't make the calculations work.

This ought to have reassured him; the laws of physics arguing on his side, telling him clearly that it was impossible, given the mechanism of the Gallifreyan Extraction, for Clara to be aging faster than the norm. But then what was going on? He had been so certain that it was a possibility, he had seen similar things from other forms of stasis and Clara's fitness levels had drop shockingly fast.

He stood back from the blackboard and cast his eyes from one end of the equation to the other. Nothing. He'd been jumping to frightening conclusions.

'I am being an Idiot,' he muttered, 'I have no proof, no proof at all, just worry, worry because of what happened before. I'm just seeing problems where there are none.' He rotated the chalk between his fingertips and let it turn his skin a paler shade of white. 'Worrying in case I lose her to something I can't control… always worrying. Idiot.'

Worry. And Fear. His constant friends. She didn't need to age faster, he knew. She was aging normally. Normally was terrifying enough for him and maybe for her. He laid the chalk down and wiped his hands. He would go and see her and explain. Communication. That was one of her favourite things. It was essential he kept doing that, Clara liked it, no, needed it. No, both of them did, if they'd just done that before…

'Hey,' Clara by the doorway a tub of ice cream in one hand and a large spoon in the other. He felt her forgiving him from where she stood, something about her posture was comforting.

'Clara,' he said, 'I was just going to…'

'What's the equation?' she asked with just a hint of concern.

The Doctor looked over at it, 'Oh this? This is…' communication, Doctor, 'I was trying to make it work. To link Extraction with accelerated aging.'

'And?' she asked. He watched her eyes inflate a little.

'It doesn't… work that is.'

'Oh,' she paused, her smile came hesitantly but it came 'See! Told you it was silly. It's fine isn't it. We're just all doom and gloom you and I.'

He smiled sadly.

'Not entirely surprising given what we went through,' Clara went on, joining him by the blackboard and offering him the spoon. The Doctor took a comforting dollop of ice-cream while Clara eyed the equation. After a moment she picked up the duster and wiped the script from its surface.

'We have to stop doing this,' she said.

'What?' he licked the back of the spoon.

'Seeing life threatening problems everywhere.'

'Isn't that fairly standard for us?' he tried to joke.

Clara laughed, 'Yeah well that's part of the problem. We need to tone down the life threatening. I mean I only went for a haircut and a bunch of armoured rhino-men came after us.'

'We need to lay low,' the Doctor agreed.

'Float in the vortex?'

'For a bit,' he handed her back the spoon and watched her dig about in the bottom of the tub, heaving cookie dough out of the ice cream around it. 'Hungry?' he asked.

'Starving,' she answered round the spoon, 'But only for things that are bad for me,' she added, puzzled.

'Clara…'

'Hmm…'

'I'm sorry for the way I've been,' the Doctor said. Clara stopped eating and stared at him for a moment.

'Are you apologising?'

'Yes.'

'What for?' she asked.

'Being overly… overly…' he looked for a word. 'Being a mother hen,' he flapped.

Clara laughed and covered her mouth with one hand but her laughter was brief. 'You mean fretting that I'm aging,' she said more solemnly.

'You were too,'

'Yes….' She admitted. 'I guess it's a sore point. I don't age for centuries and then all of a sudden… evidence. I am mortal again. I thought it was easy, being alive again, being with you at last. I thought that was all I ever wanted. But its complex isn't it? Being mortal or living forever. You'd know…'

The Doctor gazed at his shoes, unoffended, 'Yes,' he said with a quietness that implied a deep understanding, 'It is. Its complex for both of us.'

Clara scraped the bottom of the tub with her spoon. 'Well I trust your equation. If it says it's not possible, it's not possible.'

'Such blind faith Clara,' he said looking now to the ceiling. He felt her arms come around his middle.

'In you, yes,' she said. When he looked down he saw she was gazing up at him adoringly. She held his eye for a moment before he started laughing and had to look away. He still couldn't look at that expression. He couldn't believe it was aimed at him, all that warmth and softness and trust. All that love. Clara punched him in the chest gently.

'Oi,' she protested. 'I'm being romantic.'

'Sorry.'

She squeezed his middle.

'So why am I so unfit?' she asked after a minute. 'I've tried exercising in my own time but I still just get so worn out.'

'I don't know,' he admitted, 'It's odd isn't it?'

'It is. I used to go running all the time. When I was alive and when I was frozen. I enjoyed it. I don't get why suddenly I'm so out of puff. I don't feel ill…' she pondered. 'I don't have any symptoms unless I'm being chased by an army of rhino.'

'We could scan you?' he offered. 'Probably should have before but we were too busy pretending everything was really fine so we didn't scare one another.'

Clara stopped and looked back up at him. 'Scan me. In the med bay?' she asked innocently, somehow altering the entire tone of their conversation. He decided to go with it, the tone beforehand had been altogether too serious and worrying. Clara grinned openly at him.

The Doctor couldn't resist but to wink. The med bay brought back some very particular memories. 'That would be where the appropriate equipment is,' she said levelly.

'It would be wrong not to use the appropriate equipment,' she agreed, 'and if we find out I'm just lazy and unfit…'

'Hmm?'

'Then maybe you could…' she bit her lip for a moment and he could tell she was trying hard not to laugh before she finished her sentence.

'Maybe I could?' he prompted.

'Help me work out?' she giggled. The Doctor averted his gaze in order to keep his dignity. His lip twitched. He was very rapidly getting attuned to Clara's Sex Humour after most of it going straight over his head for the first few weeks. He was altogether too innocent at first but now, now he could keep up nicely with her innuendo.

'I'm sure we could devise am appropriate regime,' he said, 'A good all round cardiovascular set up with plenty of variety to prevent boredom.'

'Sounds good,' she slipped back in his arms and took one of his hands. 'No time like the present.'

He could hear the soft flicker of candlelight as he woke, and he immediately knew the TARDIS had redecorated the medbay again. The examination table was also significantly more comfortable that usual. They hadn't got round to doing the scan, but they had devised a very entertaining exercise regime for Clara. He could still hear her panting against his neck, the small murmurs of pleasure she made as he held her, as she moved above him. The Doctor smiled, still half lost in bliss, and closed his eyes again for just a few moments. When he was with her like that, everything was perfect, he wanted it to last forever.

The sound of crunching woke him a little less gently some time later. He opened one eye and looked down towards the sound. Clara was sitting on the floor, her back against a cupboard, eating crisps from a family sized pack. Around her abandoned packaging from all of her usual favourites, none of which represented healthy food.

'Had to have something salty,' she explained as she ate, crisps flying from her mouth. 'After I had some biscuits. Worked up such an appetite,' she added merrily. The Doctor sat up as she shovelled another handful into her mouth happily.

'What are you doing eating junk food on the floor?' he asked.

'Too hungry to go to the kitchen, couldn't wait or be bothered cooking, TARDIS made me a fridge,' she tapped the fridge next to her. 'And my own cupboard,' she tapped over her shoulder to where she was leaning.

'How long have you been there? And why is she encouraging you?'

'An hour maybe? You were sleeping,' she smiled, 'Sorry, resting your eyes.'

He stared at in confusion.

'She was just helping,' Clara said, 'Like when she makes my midnight snacks…'

'Your what?'

'Midnight… oh wait you don't know about those. I get hungry. At night. After we… well it's not always after we… sometimes I just get hungry. She makes me something…' Clara patted the floor affectionately to express her thanks. 'We get on a lot better these days.'

'Clara how long have you been this ravenous?' the Doctor asked, pulling on at least some of his clothes.

'Few weeks,' she said. Suddenly her face became serious. 'Well since I unfroze really. Oh god, it is a bit weird isn't it? I don't usually eat all this rubbish.' She held the packet of crisps out at arm's length and eyed it suspiciously.

'I'm scanning you for bacteria, virus, parasites, prions, fungus and any other infective agent I can think of.' The Doctor started programming the medibay's scanner urgently.

'Already did it while you were asleep,' she said, 'I'm clean. Just apparently very hungry. And unfit. Still.' She grimaced at the discovery and put down her food. 'I just need some self-control. Eat less do more,' she reached for his hand to help lever her off the floor. 'I must have just got all excited about being able to eat again now I'm 'alive,' I just need to rein it in.'

The Doctor helped her up, Clara making a most unladylike noise of effort, and looked her up and down with a frown. She stood in front of him in nothing but a camisole and knickers. Something wasn't right.

'Clara have you…?'

'What?' she asked.

'You know… um… have you?'

'What?!'

'Put on weight?' he asked quickly. Clara glared at him.

'Have I…? Doctor you never, ever ask a girl that, how dare you! Are you saying I look fatter?'

He flinched at her angry tone but still reached forward and placed his hands on her narrow and shapely hips, made a rough measurement in his head. 'I think you have,' he lifted her cami and looked at her belly.

Clara gasped in disbelief, 'I can't believe you are measuring my…' she looked down. 'Oh.'

'Oh?'

He watched as she ran her hands over her stomach and hips. 'Oh my God. It's like, it's like all that stuff I just ate was instantly converted to fat. When did that happen. I'm rounder.'

'I doubt it happened instantly, it's easy not to notice these things until someone points it out.'

'Yeah thanks…' Clara said bitterly, jabbing him in his own soft stomach in revenge. He was oblivious.

'Is this part of it?' he asked the air.

'Part of what?'

'When we were worried you were aging too fast, tiring too quickly. Is this part of it too, putting on weight rapidly? Maybe its all the same thing. Maybe it is the Extraction or…' he fumbled for an explanation.

'You're getting paranoid again. I'm putting weight on because I'm eating rubbish and not exercising enough. You said yourself, the equation putting the blame on the Extraction doesn't add up. We were just panicking because… well... because my being alive again is scary for both of us. Alive means mortal.'

The truth hung between them.

'I feel like there's another answer…' the Doctor said after a beat.

'Like?' she sucked her fingers clean.

He sighed, exasperated, 'I don't know. I feel like I should know, like its blindingly obvious, but I can't get it to add up in my head. What if I miss it entirely?'

Clara reached up and rubbed his head. The Doctor flinched away, 'Ugh, greasy fingers Clara.'

She snorted. 'Ok, ok.'

'Sorry,'

'Just try to relax,' Clara reached up and kissed his cheek tenderly, 'It can't always be something sinister or alien.'

'You aren't worried?' he asked.

'Should I be? It's pretty vague stuff Doctor. I'm hungrier. That's not life threatening. I don't want to be worrying. I've done enough worrying. And so have you. Just let it go, let's just enjoy ourselves. And in the meantime I'll try not to turn into a massive bloater.' She smiled at him in reassurance, but he didn't feel reassured. She wasn't entirely either, she never was when he remained concerned.

He chewed his thumb.

Clara was changing. Tiny things. Grey hair. Less fit. Weight gain. He didn't care about any individual feature. He adored her. But change led to one thing, and then another and another and eventually in his experience loss. All these little things would mount up and… and…

And he was frightened all over again. If this was what it was going to be like each time Clara showed a sign of age or an effect of her actions or environment, if all he was going to do was panic or worry. He was going to lose her. It would be all he could think of at this rate.

Wait. Didn't' t she remark that she found it hard too. That she got scared when reminded of her mortality? That adapting to it was difficult? Hadn't she spent just as much time worrying she might be aging as he had? Watching herself in the mirror where her reflection had been identical for four hundred years and now could be altered, but her hand or by Time.

He watched as she stooped to clear up empty food cartons and flinched, holding her back for a second.

She's been alive and frozen, and now alive again. It wasn't fair, it was too much for anyone to keep going through. Why should she have to adapt?

Why should he?

He knew people, he knew ways, ways of extending life without 'freezing' the person, ways of enhancing physiology, ways of finding eternal youth. Wouldn't that be the solution? Couldn't they just fix things that way? Make things perfect at last?

Didn't they both deserve that?

Yes, yes they did. He just had to persuade her.

The Doctor hushed the little voice of warning deep inside his head.


	3. Chapter 3

The Doctor was rehearsing, rehearsing how he would put his proposal to Clara once she was awake again. He knew that whatever he said it had to be both moral and persuasive as Clara was a woman of impeccable ethics and, he knew, accepted her position as human, as mortal, even if it terrified her after so long frozen and free from age. She found it hard and challenging but she would never feel she had the right to be immortal again.

He could argue otherwise, but Clara didn't have that sense of entitlement around her now. He would need to be prepared, calm, authoritative and even then he did not exactly brim with confidence. He was nervous already but he felt it had to be addressed, sooner rather than later.

He turned slightly on the bed and watched her sleeping. If he listened very hard with his enhanced senses he could hear her heart beating. He could see her breathing, the slight disturbance of her hair where it fell across her face a little and caught her breath. The Doctor reached out to pull the cover over her a little further and brushed her arm, warm in the cool of their room. The sight of her made him smile but it also broke his heart. He was over two thousand years old. He could blink and she would be eighty. Another moment and she would be gone. He swallowed the thought. She would be awake soon, he could almost time her, a healthy human eight hours, and he didn't want to be caught like this.

Slowly he slid from the bed and crossed the room. She liked coffee first thing when she was struggling to come round, it was something she only recently remembered. He remembered though, from long ago, when he would nip to her favourite coffee shop before turning up at her door, or landing in her living room. She'd appear rumpled and grumpy and bid him wait on her couch while she downed the coffee and went for a shower. So started most of their adventures; things had been a lot simpler then. Except they hadn't really, he'd just tried to bury his true feelings.

Minutes passed and then Clara wandered into the kitchen tying her robe around her and trying to sort out her wild hair. She sat in front of her mug before the Doctor could even pour her coffee.

'Good morning?' he phrased it as a question.

Clara scowled into the mug accusingly. 'Have we got any sugar?'

'You don't take sugar,' he said.

'You do though, so must have some lying about. Two please.'

Puzzled the Doctor fetched his bottomless jar of sugar cubes and added two to her drink. Clara stirred quietly for a moment.

'My head is killing me,' she said at last, 'I don't know why. I slept, I wasn't drinking last night, so why the banging headache?'

He had extracted the screwdriver in a flash but paused when Clara glared at him. 'Stop trying to scan bits of me. I told you, I scanned myself the other day and I'm fine. Blood pressure on the high side, unsurprisingly living with you waving that thing at me, but otherwise fine.'

'I just…'

'You just want to see for yourself. You don't think I can work a simple scanner. Doctor I've been out and about in the universe for centuries, looking after myself, I can do the basics.' Her tone was slightly heated and Clara ended abruptly. It stung. What was wrong with her? Her moods were all over the place lately, another change he'd noted that frightened him for the future.

He slowly put the scanner away and looked crestfallenly at the mug of coffee she was cradling in both hands.

'Sorry,' he said a little pathetically, 'I forget… I mean its hard to remember that. All that time you were travelling I'd forgotten you even existed. Its only now settling back into my memory. I find it hard to…' he searched for the words, 'Marry up the memories and present day you? I keep thinking you are you from four hundred years ago… when we first met.'

'Yes, well I'm not, I'm really not. In fact, I couldn't be more different,' Clara put one hand to her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut. She looked incredibly stressed. 'God this is really sore. I'm sorry I'm snapping. I just haven't had a headache for a very, very long time. I'm probably just being a wimp because I'm not used to it.'

'Maybe you should lie down again,' the Doctor suggested quietly. Perhaps now wasn't the time to address the question of immortality. He watched her rub the bridge of her nose, pinched between her fingers. She sipped at her coffee and ordered the TARDIS put the lights down a little. On the other hand maybe now was the time. When she was frozen she never had pain at all. He could use that in his argument…

'Stop hovering,' she said quietly, 'I'll be OK. It's just an old fashioned headache. I used to get them when I did a lot of marking or the kids were too noisy at school.'

'Is there anything you need?' he asked.

Clara looked up at him through squinted eyes, 'I'm fine, honestly, stop worrying.'

He laughed somewhat drily, 'That's not something I can do.'

'I've noticed,' she said returning her hands to over her face and trying to squeeze the pain out of her head. 'Just don't get too het up, this is not a crisis, I don't need you to fix it, it will pass.'

'Clara, I think you're being a bit harsh there…'

'Maybe. I just don't want you to consume yourself with concern while I sleep off a migraine. An ordinary affliction lots of humans get and one I used to get too.'

He shuffled by the counter and she looked up again. 'Ok?' she demanded.

'OK, I'll try not to consume myself,' he said reluctantly.

A minute passed and Clara downed the rest of her coffee. 'Any chance of some painkillers?' she asked the environs of the kitchen. The TARDIS made a conciliatory noise and a drawer shot open under the counter. Clara popped the two large orange pills into her mouth without asking what they were. A final slug of her coffee remnants chased them away with a grimace and the Doctor waited hopefully for an effect. TARDIS painkillers were particularly fast acting, and he needed them to act fast. He had decided he had to talk to her, he couldn't stand to spend everyday contorted in concern.

The Doctor's proposal felt like an itch inside his brain, tickling away at the back of his head. He fidgeted and shifted, chewed on his thumbnail and watched Clara's every move. Was she feeling better? Was she more relaxed looking? He eyeballed her from the other side of the counter. Eventually she couldn't stand it anymore.

'What is it Doctor? You look like you might combust if you don't tell me.'

'Nothing, it can wait, until you feel better,' he said testing her.

Clara settled herself more comfortably on her stool, her postured generally less tense. 'No, go on, might distract me, tell me. Have you found somewhere exciting for us to go?' he sensed her natural optimism trying to come through the headache.

He hesitated, 'Well… yes and no..' he answered.

Clara frowned, 'Oh… that sounds… what are you up to Doctor?' she raised one eyebrow playfully and he felt his hearts skip a little. She was herself under there. 'Is it somewhere fun? Have we been there before or is it a new place?'

She seemed genuinely interested, not humouring him at all. He had thought her head would hurt too much to talk but there she was, sitting up straighter now, eyes bright. Adventures really were like some kind of drug to her. He paused as memories trickled back. Clara throwing herself into their travels years ago, Clara high on the adrenaline they gave her, dancing around him laughing. Clara telling him she had a plan, that everything would be alright. Clara taking risks. Clara dying. His guts turned to stone and he felt a chill come over him.

'Doctor?' she pushed, 'Oi, pay attention, where have you got in mind? I think a day out would do me good. Maybe this headache is cabin fever? And I've been a pain this morning. Maybe if we go somewhere fun I can make it up to you.'

'I… well… it's not that sort of trip really,' he started.

Her curiosity lit up her face even more. 'Oh, what kind of trip is it? Is it a mission? Is it a secret mission? Another heist?!'

She was practically ready to leap from her seat and run. Which, he reminded himself, was why he was doing this. She was mortal. Mortality and adventures didn't go well together. It was for the best. He just had to persuade her, gently, to come with him on this trip.

'I was thinking about visiting Karn,' he started.

'Karn, with the Sisterhood, Ohila?' Clara said, reaching for more coffee to add caffeine to the thrill in her blood that he could practically see from where he stood. She was glowing now. The pills must have been working. 'Are they in trouble?' she asked.

'No, not trouble. But they owe me some favours and I wanted to speak to you about that, about them doing us a favour.'

There he had started down the road. He held his breath while she looked at him in confusion.

'What kind of favour?' she asked, 'Everything seems OK. You've remembered stuff, I'm getting used to being alive again, we're doing pretty well if you ask me, it's been a tough experience all round.'

'Yes, yes it has….' He said softly, looking down at his feet and chewing on his lower lip. 'I umm… well you see I'm a bit…'

Clara pulled her 'what's the matter with you?' face at him and he nearly lost his nerve.

'I'm worried about you,' he blurted quickly.

'Oh not this again,' Clara said, 'Yes I have noticed and at first I was a bit panicked too but look, I'm not aging super fast, I'm not infected with something, we just freaked a bit when I first defrosted.'

'I know that but…' but, but, but she was Alive, which meant she could also be dead, and he couldn't cope with it, not again, not again. Why couldn't she see that? 'I… it's not…' he fumbled.

Clara's face became tense, 'Listen to me Doctor, everything I'm experiencing is normal for being alive. There is no other significance to it. Its day to day stuff, its _life,_ and as such we just have to accept it.'

'Do you want to?' he asked sharply. 'Just accept it?'

'What?' she responded incredulously, 'I'm human, I have a limited life span, there I've said it, that's what all this is about. Watching me, worrying over me. You're scared and I get that. But I am human and that's that, it's what I always was before. I never should have been Extracted, but I was and I got some bonus years that incidentally the Universe still isn't very happy with. Now I'm alive again, and that's temporary but it's as it should be.'

'Is it?' he asked watching her face. 'Is it right? You get sixty years tops and then you just die?'

Clara paused, conflict in her features. Alive, frozen, alive. She'd had a taste of immortality now and it was a hard thing to lose. He watched her morals fight with her heart and everything she wanted from the future. Both living and being frozen had their advantages and they had talked of those over and over, but was it enough to just be alive?

Her answer was exactly as he expected it to be.

'Yes,' she said, her tone flat, 'I have no right to be immortal, it never should have happened, but it did, and now I get to live out the rest of my normal human lifespan with you. That's more than anyone could ask for. I have no right to demand Forever as well.' For a moment she looked like she had convinced herself.

'What about me?' the Doctor said quietly, echoing his words from Trap Street.

'You get my normal human lifespan too, and then I die,' she said bluntly, trying to keep her voice level and unaffected. 'That's how it has to be. I will age, and then it will be over.'

'Clara… it doesn't have to be…' he reached for her and she backed away, getting up from the stool. 'Clara, please, this time can be different, it can be better. It doesn't have to be Extraction, you need to be frozen. There are things we can do, clever things that don't upset the universe, that don't cause rifts… please you don't have to just die because you were born human.'

'No,' she said, 'That's just how it is, how it was all those years back when we travelled together, I was normal then too and we…you…' her face fell into disbelief as she looked at him and he was acutely aware of how desperate he had to appear, of how hard his hearts were hammering, how scared he felt. She looked at him and saw it, and she saw what it meant too.

'Please tell me this isn't like then,' she said, 'Please tell me you can accept things as they are. That you aren't about to go on some crusade on my behalf? There aren't any diamond hard walls to break?'

'It's not like that this time but…' he started. Her eyes became wide with incredulity.

Clara threw her hands up, 'Oh no, no, not this. I should have seen this coming. All your worry, your protectiveness, it's all going to go the same way isn't it? You had to save me from the Raven, throw yourself in front of it, because you still can't let go. You couldn't even remember me then and you still sacrificed yourself. Everything you've been through and you still haven't learned. The Raven could have killed you just as easily. What if you'd had no regeneration energy left? You didn't think, you just did it. Why do you never think? Didn't it occur to you that I didn't want you to die? That I'd gone there because I had thought long and hard and come to the conclusion I'd had my time? Why do you always have to confuse things?'

She was crying now, hurt by his inability to accept her mortality and her intrinsic humanness. And he knew it, that she was hurt and angry, that something was going to break between them, he could feel it coming off her in waves but he couldn't stop. He couldn't lose her again in sixty, forty, twenty years time, or tomorrow. It would destroy him.

He didn't know what to say so the pair stood opposite each other, across the kitchen counter, trying to work out where to go. Clara's breathing was harsh and now and then she wiped her face with the back of her hand. The Doctor's heartbeats were too fast and the knot of panic in his chest was hurting him. At last Clara spoke, her voice cautious.

'Karn. What were you going to do there?' she asked.

He hesitated.

'Tell me,' she insisted. 'You might as well now.'

'The sisterhood, they owe me a favour or two.'

She blinked at him but didn't speak.

'They guard the elixir of life,' he explained, 'It's the same fundamentally as what gives me my regenerations.'

Clara's expression morphed from disbelief to tearfulness again. She fought it back, looked away from him. Her profile was silhouetted in the slight dark of the kitchen against the bright light from the door.

'You were going to ask them to… make me immortal?' she asked.

'Semi immortal,' he corrected, 'Like me. So that…'

'So that what?' she still wouldn't look at him.

'So that neither of us would be left alone in the end,' he said in the softest voice. He watched fresh tears roll down Clara's cheeks catching in the subdued light. 'Please Clara, you don't know what it's like. To lose you and to grieve for a dozen years would be bad enough, but I just keep going, centuries pass, millennium even, and I have to grieve through all of that. In the Confession Dial…'

'I know,' she whispered.

'No… no you don't!' he felt anger suddenly surge up from inside him 'You have no idea what that was like, how it felt every day, to be imprisoned in a private hell with only your portrait and a ghoul for company.' He saw Clara flinch. 'I went through all of that for you, and it didn't even get wiped when I saved you from the Raven again. The paradox left it in my head, left the nightmares and the memories. How can you ask me to do that again, how can you asked me to mourn for you again now I've found you?'

'I never asked you to…'

'That's not the point!' he shouted and silence clattered down around them.

'Please Clara,' he said quietly after a moment, 'Please just consider it…'

Very briefly she turned to look at him and it was then he saw the expression in her eyes even in the gloom. He had learned to read her better these days and he knew what it meant. It was heartstopping and a flood of panic hit him. Clara took a deep breath before she spoke.

'Doctor, you are wrong,' she said, 'I know how it feels to grieve. I grieved for my mum. I grieved for Danny. I grieved for you for four hundred years and you weren't even dead. I know what you went through was painful, that it was an actual hell, and I would never wish anything like that on your again. But I was born human, born to have natural limitations, but you flouted that and I gained centuries I shouldn't have had. I have no right to ask for any more time, and you have no right to demand it.'

Silence, and then in a smaller, different voice she finished what she had set out to tell him.

'I don't think I can be here anymore, not right now' she said, 'It feels like nothing has changed. Like we would still destroy the universe if it meant saving each other. I know why you feel the way you feel; I don't condemn that. My life is so much shorter than yours. A mayfly you called it, it must feel terrifyingly short compared to yours. And it's not just you. If I thought, you were dying I might react the same. I would react the same, I'd do anything to save you.' Clara's figure slumped slightly, her posture exhausted.

'I need to think,' she continued, 'I need to work out if we can do this, and how, or if we just have to be apart.'

'Clara, no!'

'And to do that I need to be away from you,' she went on, trying to ignore him. 'I'll get a few things together, have the TARDIS drop me off.' Her voice was thoughtful, clinging to the practical to get her through what she was about to do. He could see her warring with herself but he could also detect that steely stubborn centre in Clara coming to the fore. He felt sick.

'Don't be ridiculous, you can't leave, it hasn't come to that,' the Doctor said horrified, 'Where will you go? Who will you go to? You can't just touch down somewhere in the universe alone.'

Clara turned from where she stood by the door. 'I've been travelling four hundred years, Doctor, I know plenty of people and places. I'm all grown up now, I'll be fine.'

She stopped for a moment, 'You've no idea how much I wish we didn't do this to each other. I love you so much, but I think… I think maybe we're just doomed to bring out the worst in each other. I'm so sorry… I just can't…'

He felt her leave the room, his eyes too blurred with unshed tears to see.


	4. Chapter 4

'Why would she leave? Why would she just leave?' the Doctor stormed from one side of the console to the other, raging at his ship. 'We were apart so long, why would she ever want that again? Doesn't she know how much it means to me for her to be here? Can't she see how much this hurts?'

The TARDIS made a mournful sound and the lights flickered once. The old girl had come to like Clara. The Doctor stopped and leaned heavily on both hands against the control panel. He was panting with exertion from storming around and arguing with himself, or thin air, or a make believe Clara. In his wake he had damaged or destroyed equipment all over the ship and she had still forgiven him, sensing his hurt. He felt guilty but too distressed to make amends or repair her. He was reminded of when he thought he had found Gallifrey and instead found empty space. Losing Clara was like losing his home.

He shut his eyes tightly in a desperate attempt to gain some self-control. He was shaking. Days had passed, and nothing from Clara, no hint of where she was, no assurance she was at least safe. She had programmed his TARDIS to leave her somewhere and then had it wipe all co-ordinates. His treacherous newly upgraded navigation system had complied and refused to spew out the previous destinations. The TARDIS tried holding it to ransom best she could but it simply scrambled what data it had. Eventually when the Doctor had discovered its deliberate meddling he had smashed its buttons and keys with his fist until sparks flew and his knuckles bled. It went on fire and he knew he would have to rely on the older less reliable circuitry to fly.

Now he was helpless. He had no way to find her, no ship or signal to trace, she could be anywhere in the universe at any time. His breathing a little steadier he looked down at his hands and the scabs which had formed after his last outburst. His stomach lurched with anxiety and his palms were damp. He felt a wreck. He couldn't control his emotions, his temper flared and then fell away just as quickly. He had spent hours weeping like a child curled in his armchair, pleading with the TARDIS to locate her, pleading with some higher entity to intervene. He grew ashamed and fell quiet, exhausted and drained until the anger built in him again, the injustice of it all and he exploded into action once more. He was as unstable as he had ever been and he understood now better than ever why his memory needed to be wiped when they parted before. He needed Clara, like he had never needed anyone else. She was in his blood and DNA, his timestream and as evidenced on Trap Street, his soul.

He had not eaten and he had not slept. Instead he had torn the place apart. He had gone to their room and searched for clues. He had tipped open Clara's wardrobe and emptied it unceremoniously. He tried to note which clothes she had taken but he never really paid attention to what she wore. If he knew that he would at least know if her destination was hot or cold. Standing surrounded by jumpers and skirts he passed a hand over his face in despair. He would find nothing of any help here. He looked around the rest of their shared space. He opened drawers and poured out contents, hairbrush, jewellery. Her bookcase was raised and paperbacks were strewn across the floor. From what he could work out she had taken her pictures of family long gone and her favourite novel. Neither pointed to her destination. His search was fruitless but he had to use his energy somehow.

He would have to hunt the old fashioned way. Think of where she might be and touch down there and search. Physically look for her. Had she gone back to London, tried to fit back into her life? Is that why she took pictures of family? No, her timeline was fragile, she would cause a collapse and she knew it. Clara knew better than to go to old haunts.

Had she tried to return to Trap Street in the sealed up pocket universe he had created to stabilise the rifts saving her life had caused? Even if she had she wouldn't be able to enter without help, the whole thing was unstable and dangerous and she wouldn't put others at risk. She was too good, too pure, she wouldn't jeopardise other people.

He tried her favourite places to visit, arriving at Madame Vastra's and questioning her and Strax at length. No, Clara had no paid a call, not in some time, not since being with the Doctor and not since she had been travelling with Ashildr.

Ashildr. Where was she? Ironically she was easier to trace than Clara because of the vehicle she drove. Clara's stolen TARDIS. Stolen from the workshop on Gallifrey and then stolen from her. The Diner in space. Suddenly filled with the possibility of a new clue the Doctor punched in a tracking code and opened a channel to the only other TARDIS out there.

Up she popped as though half expecting him and greeted him with a grin on her perpetually youthful face. He automatically looked behind her for her former companion.

'Hello, old pal,' Ashildr said sarcastically, 'And how may Lady Me help you today?'

'You know,' he growled.

'Do I?' she had perfected her best innocent look.

'Clara,' the Doctor elaborated.

'What about her? Last I saw she was running away with you in your blue snog box.'

Her words riled him. 'Last we saw you, you were running off in her Diner as Trap Street collapsed around us. Thanks for the help.'

She smiled, 'Thought you'd have it under control. You're good at that stuff. I'd have just got in the way…'

'Tell me where she is,' he said, leaning over the console.

'How should I know? I thought she was with you,' Lady Me said theatrically, 'Has she left you already? That's a shame. You must be heartbroken, lucky you've got a spare. But I must say, and I really _must_ say it,' she took a deep breath, 'I told you so! She's her own woman. Always was but has been even more so for a long time now, Doctor. Perhaps that's where you're going wrong?'

'What are you talking about?' he grumbled. She was hitting too many weak spots for his liking.

'Clara,' she said, 'She isn't your innocent bambi-eyed girl anymore. She's not straight out of teacher training. She's four hundred plus years old. She's seen things. Seen life, seen death and all the mess in between. She's been places even you haven't visited. She can cope with a lot more than you've given her credit for, she can make her own mind up. She isn't afraid. Brave Clara is even braver now.'

'So? What are you getting at?'

Lady Me sighed in pity, 'She's a grown up time traveller. If she doesn't want to be found she won't be found. She has experience now, and she had a good teacher in you. Even if it does pain me to say it, you're pretty good at hiding from the Time Lords when you want to be. She can be too…' she paused and then pursed her lips a moment.

'Why did she go?' she asked.

The Doctor looked down at the controls again. 'I don't want to talk about it.'

'Not even with an old friend?'

'I'm not sure you were ever that,' he said.

'We share a lot, you and I,' Lady Me said, her tone changing slightly. 'We might not see eye to eye but we're roughly on the same side.'

He seethed. 'You are a selfish…'

'Now, now… don't spoil our conversation with unpleasant and personal remarks. Tell me why she left.'

He paused, wondering what best to do. Surely he couldn't trust Lady Me. 'We wanted different things,' he plumped for vague.

'Must have been something big.' Lady Me's sharp eyes revealed her ticking mind.

'Yes,' he confessed quietly.

'Something you wanted but she didn't?'

'Yes… how?'

'Had to be that way round, Doctor.'

'Why do you say that?' he looked at her curiously.

'Think about it. You two separated for your own good and the good of the universe. You spent four hundred years oblivious to the whole thing, forgot her, forgot the intensity of your relationship, vaguely remembered a fairytale called Clara. She didn't forget, she lived with it, grieved for it, moved on best she could.'

'So?'

'So she learned from it. You didn't,' Lady Me explained. 'You're still fighting for her in exactly the same way as you did all those centuries ago. Your memories are suddenly fresh and let me guess, you're afraid she might die. Well that didn't take long did it? Barely together a few weeks and already predicting her death. Not exactly fun to live with.'

'I…' he was speechless, he had failed to think of the kind of pressure that put on Clara, the constant fuss and worry and watchfulness he subjected her to. How could she live with him waiting for the shadow of her death to move beside her? She was already confronting a shorter life and he was reminding her of that, day in, day out.

'I hope I've been of assistance,' Lady Me was saying. The Doctor blinked and looked at the screen.

'You'd tell me,' he said, 'If you saw her.'

'I haven't, I don't think I'm her favourite person… but of course I would let you know. I wouldn't want to miss out on the entertainment. Goodbye Doctor.'

The screen suddenly went blank. A dead end.

The Doctor stood and stared at it for at least ten minutes, Ashildr's words echoing in his head. It was all his fault. The pressure he exerted on her must have been unbearable. All she wanted to do was have fun, be with him, enjoy her life. All he could think of was her death. He was such a fool. An old, stupid fool who never learned. No wonder she had felt unwell, no wonder her hair turned grey and her head ached. He had probably been the root cause of her stress, filling her with ideas about premature accelerated aging and shortened lifespan. It wasn't even possible; he had failed to manage the equations, but he had created an atmosphere of stress and worry.

He found himself pacing around the console room, desperately trying to think what to do next, where to _go_ next? All he wanted to do was find her, there had to be a way to do that, some form of technology, some tracer? He went down to his workbench and scanned the bits and pieces he kept there for making such things. Nothing came to mind. What else what else? How do humans find each other? He paced back up and out into the corridor.

She didn't have her phone anymore, the one he had set up to work across time and space. She told him she had given it to Ashildr to keep away from her in case she tried to contact him. At the time he had been surprised that she could be so strong, but Clara, was Clara. If she felt something had to be done, she did it. It was just as Ashildr had said, if she didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be.

So no phone, no signal. But she had a sonic, she had his sonic sunglasses and she'd carried them with her most of the time. He'd made them and their records were still in the TARDIS memory system, maybe he could use that to construct a tracer? He stopped, designing a blueprint in his head. He was half way down the corridor right next to the med bay. He looked at the examination table. No hearts and flowers now, no candles. It had become a running joke with them, they'd go there to patch each other up or run a scan and things would get heated, intimate, spurred on by adrenaline…

He pushed the thought away as unhelpful.

Scans.

Scans. Clara had run a scan to check for infection when she had begun feeling so worn out. She'd said it was fine though, hadn't let him do one when her head hurt. He stepped into the room. He'd asked her but she hadn't even shown him the results. A horrible feeling went through him. Why had that been a big deal?

'She was alright wasn't she?' the Doctor asked the scanner. 'She wasn't just saying she was fine?'

Oh God what is she was ill and he was speaking to her about mortality and death and... what if she had been ill or worse, dying?

'Stop that,' he said to himself, 'Your mind is running away with you. There was nothing wrong with her, right?' he asked the screen. 'Not ill, not dying. Please, find the scan, the latest full body scan of Clara.'

An image popped up and then projected in 3D onto a small platform in the centre of the room while a computerised voice narrated the findings of the scan she had done. Clara Oswald. Various facts and figures were reeled off; blood count, temperature, biochemistry, all looking reassuringly normal for someone who had been Extracted. He watched in fascination and then the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief, turned back to the screen to shut it down.

The computer's voice spoke again.

 _Abnormal and unexpected findings._

His chest tightened reflexively. The Doctor turned back quickly and eyed the projection, tried to orientate himself as to what exactly he was looking at. It was no longer showing whole body but a single organ, and that organ had unexpected findings. He never was good at human internal anatomy. He turned up the magnification. What was he looking at? A growth, a tumour?

And then he saw it and he felt his world turn on its head. He touched the projection, enlarged it by drawing his fingertips apart on its surface. He was suddenly absolutely certain what he was looking at as it rotated in front of him. It was tiny and fragile and you had to know where to look and what you were looking for, but there it was. She would have seen it too, why hadn't she told him? Why hadn't she said? How could she leave when she had this knowledge?

'Dear Gods….' He breathed, bending low to be eye to eye with the thing. The thing that was currently growing inside Clara Oswald. The thing with two heartbeats that left Clara more vulnerable than she had ever been.

He really had to find her now.


	5. Chapter 5

The tone of his panic alerted, from nonspecific generalised anxiety, to a sharp and focused alarm. No longer wondering what ailed Clara, he now knew exactly what was going on. She was pregnant, and with his child, a Gallifreyan baby growing in a human woman. It had happened before, without harm to mother and baby, he of all people should know that; but it wasn't even that simple for Clara, hers as ever was a unique problem.

The Doctor paced the medbay stopping now and then to look over the scan again. This little creature wasn't only Gallifreyan, it was half human, a hybrid, but what's more the dates showed it was conceived on board the TARDIS, like River. The amalgamation of circumstances was unprecedented. Layer upon layer of space-time complexity defined this embryo, conceived as it was within the influence of the vortex, but add to that spliced genes that could lead to possible mutation and the combination could cause all sorts of problems.

He paused, admitting to himself the fact he always kept hidden, his own hybrid human heritage, the DNA he received from his human mother which was overshadowed by the dominant genes of his father. It meant that though he appeared Time Lord in his abilities, his own genes were fifty fifty so whatever he had passed to his child of Time Lord genetics was watered down and more prone to defect. It wasn't half human at all, it was mostly human. Mostly human with some unknown features. This was not a good state of affairs. It meant it could inherit something from him that its own perhaps largely human brain or body could not deal with.

He tried to think logically with increasing difficulty. So far he knew his baby had twin hearts but he couldn't tell how much influence Gallifreyan genes really had. What was to say it would not all go wrong? What were its chances? Was it viable outside of the womb? Would the pregnancy even continue after she reached the vital twenty weeks? Twenty weeks was a dangerous time for mother and child in Gallifrey as the infant's mind woke to communication outside the womb. How would that ever succeed if Clara was alone? Would it drive her mad?

So many questions, but his emotions were blocking his logic and rational. All he could see were the twin beats of its hearts on the projection, he couldn't think straight about DNA and time vortexes; about odds and statistics and likelihoods, he just felt worry. Worry, worry, worry. His mind felt like it was short circuiting.

He stopped by the examination bed and tried to slow his breathing, felt the prickle of sweat under his shirt. He had to calm down, but his chest was tightening and a sense of doom coming over him. He was going to lose her, he was certain of it now. Not only had she walked away but he had made her pregnant. He had implanted that seed into a weak human body. It was all his fault, all his…

It raged on like a sea of confused guilt and accusatory speculation in his head. Clara would have no idea. She would know it only as an ordinary pregnancy, unable to hear her child the way Gallifreyans could. How could she possibly cope? Would it survive when faced with her silence? Could Clara carry it to term? And if it lived how would the time vortex and his Time Lord blood show its self? Telepathy? Regeneration? Long life? All or none of those. Something more disabling?

'Stop, just stop, you can't answer any of this,' he told himself. 'Stop and do something useful. You have to find her.'

The Doctor placed his hand on the projection again, his fingertips on the tiny thing's hearts. It wouldn't be so small for long and Clara would need help, his help specifically failing a Time Lord medical facility and those were rare. There were reasons they as a species had turned to the Looms and natural pregnancy was avoided, and he was afraid Clara was about to find out why. Despite looking similar to begin with this was not a human pregnancy, and perhaps if she had realised that she would never have left. The headache she had complained of was just the start. Perhaps she was realising now, somewhere out there, and had no way back. The Doctor felt his stomach lurch with worry, he had to find her and he had an idea how.

Shutting down the scan he made his way quickly from the medbay and back to the console room, spinning and coming to a stop in front of the spongey telepathic interface. In the past both he and Clara had tracked down places people and times using its capabilities, surely this was the logical step? As a Time Lord he would have a mental connection to his growing child although admittedly that would only come later in the pregnancy. But it was the only way he could think of. If he could just get there early enough in the gestation he could help.

The Doctor tugged up the sleeves of his jacket and slipped his long fingers between the soft pleats of fleshy material on the console. He watched them glow softly.

'Clara,' he said closing his eyes, 'Clara…' his voice trailed off and he let his mind direct him, Clara's face leading him on a journey through places and memories they shared. So long ago he had met her, so much seen together, experienced. He saw cybermen and daleks, felt the pain of leaving her behind and the joy of a special Christmas. His heartbeats quickened at the memory of their first kiss, but he flinched when it came to their recent argument. So much hurt in her eyes, so much disappointment. He hadn't learned, Ashildr had told him, and Clara had only confirmed it.

The memory played over and over again, the sound of her leaving. Where did she go next? The picture didn't move on, just Clara caught in a loop, leaving him, leaving him. He pushed harder into the interface. Somewhere out there his child was growing inside her, its mind developing and its natural attachment to him gaining strength. He felt the interface tremble around his fingers and the lights overhead blinked once. He knew the TARDIS was struggling to form the connection.

'Just a little more old girl,' he said quietly, focused still on reaching out to the fragile telepathic ability he could sense coming from his child. 'Come on…'

The whole console shuddered and this time the lights blinked and stayed dim. The Doctor altered his stance and braced himself against the interface. Something was blocking him from sensing the child and also from Clara. That made no sense. He had an automatic connection to the baby as the pregnancy progressed. He tried again, hoping to connect to a point in the future where the baby was nearer term and could reciprocate his communication. The TARDIS rattled again around him.

Pain in his hands now, spreading up his arms, he tore them away from the interface with a short yell.

'What is going on?' he growled to the blinking lights of the room. 'It's like there's some sort of field around her. How is that even possible? To push me away from my child? And why? Does she think so little of me? Does she trust me so little?' He felt a sudden surge of injustice and anger. She must have known she was pregnant and she left him, now she had taken steps to keep him away. But she didn't understand, she didn't know what was to come. She had to let him help.

He swung his fist towards the console with a crack and dented the surface. A few small control keys snapped under his knuckles and skittered over the floor.

'Work round it,' he told the TARDIS, 'There must be a way. Someone must be helping her. Who? Who would do that?'

Frustrated with his constant questioning the TARDIS projected its voice interface to the left of the console. It took the form of Clara and stopped him dead in his tracks.

'Who would help me?' it said.

'That's not helpful,' The Doctor replied curtly, 'Don't be her.'

'Why not,' it sat on the console, 'Keeps you motivated.'

The Doctor glared at it. 'Why would someone erect a force field around her to prevent telepathic communication? '

'Maybe she asked for one, to keep you at bay?' it mused and he cast it another angry look. It had the good grace to look guilty.

'That's what I'm worried about, are things that bad?' he mussed up his hair with anxiety, dragging his fingers back and forth in it making it fluffy and unkempt.

The interface rolled its eyes at him, 'No you old fool, things aren't that bad, she isn't doing it to block you…'

'Then who..?'

'Think about it…'

He paused, 'I'm thinking but I… Reapers? Is it the Reapers? She's afraid they might track her or the baby?'

Again the interface looked despairingly at him, 'No, not Reapers, although no doubt theyr are out their somewhere. But they aren't big on telepathy are they? So…' it said slowly like a schoolteacher with a child, 'Who uses telepathy, who would be following her, tracking that baby?'

'Look if you know who it is just tell me I don't have time for games,' he said.

'Time Lords,' the interface said suddenly.

The Doctors eyes grew wide. 'Oh Gods, no…'

'She's carrying a part Time Lord baby. At some point in the next few months it will be audible to anyone telepathic. Right now its audible to those in its own species. And the Time Lords… they aren't best pleased with either of you are they? Looking for you even? She can't have a baby chattering away into the ether when you're both being pursued. She can't even control it like a Time Lord mother could, she has no telepathic skills herself… and that's a whole other issue isn't it. But it seems to me Clara has no choice but to block the noise.'

'But I'm the father I should be able to hear…its part of the baby's development.'

'I'm sure she'd love you to hear but she needs to block out the population of Gallifrey from discovering she's carrying a child. Your child. The Doctor's child. They would be after her in a flash along with half the universe if they let the news slip. She can't' afford to put a gap in the forcefield just for you, it would only weaken it.'

He leaned his elbows heavily on the controls, tugged his hands through his hair.

'The baby needs me, that's how it works,' he moaned sadly into the console. 'You must be able to do something.'

A pause punctuated by the clicking of dials and equipment.

'As the baby develops its telepathic voice grows in volume and persistence,' the interface said. 'The force field will be less able to hide it from you, as your link is stronger than others. It will still be hidden from the Other Time Lords but you might just be able to trace it. I can also magnify what you are broadcasting to the baby, to encourage it to link with you.'

'Good, do it.'

'There is a drawback.'

He looked at her warily, 'What?'

'The baby won't be strong enough to do this until the end of the pregnancy, when Clara is almost full term. You will miss a great deal, and she will suffer because of it, you know that.'

The Doctor swallowed. 'Do it as early as you can, if there's no other way…'

'You know what that means for Clara, don't you?'

Again he swallowed hard, ground his teeth together. 'I'm aware,' he said lowly, 'But if it's the best we can do…. As early as possible mind, promise me.'

The hologram of Clara hopped down from the console and walked up to face him, its big brown eyes identical to hers but empty of warmth. He sensed the TARDIS's concern for him but it could never look convincing, as hard as it tried.

'I promise,' it said cooly.

The interface vanished and he stood waiting, wondering how long Clara would be alone for. Alone and pregnant. It didn't feel right but he couldn't trace her any faster. Perhaps if he found her he could persuade her…

'Stop,' he said. Every time he tried to persuade her of things, things went wrong. They ahd to stop meddling with time for each other. Clara was her own woman, she made decisions herself. He had to remember that. Above all else he had to find her and this offered a way.

He slipped his hands back into the telepathic interface and closed his eyes.

'Come on,' he murmured, 'This time.'

There was a flickering in the lights again and then the TARDIS settled around him, its engines silent and the air filled only with that odd sense that the ship was breathing that he usually felt at night. It was peaceful and focused, like meditation. The Doctor tried to empty his mind.

Then he thought of Clara, and of the scan and what he had seen. He thought of the twin heartbeats and listened for them with his mind. They were his connection, his way in, if he could only find a gap in the forcefield, if he could just find a time when his child was reaching out, searching for him.

At first it was dark and then he realised there was a soft glow coming from behind a wall. He pressed deeper into the interface, a mumbling coming from around him, from all directions. He struggled to pinpoint it and then realised that that was the point, it came from all around, its depth and tone familiar though its words were still obscured. Then it came to him.

It was Clara, speaking, not to him he sensed, but to a companion, someone behind the wall. There was the feeling that she trusted them, that she was imparting secrets, but at the same time there was a feeling of discomfort coming from outside of the dark space. He wished he could see, or even hear better, his senses were so limited by where he appeared to be connected to her and by the forcefield still influencing his abilities.

Thud.

Thud.

In the TARDIS he frowned and turned his head slightly to listen.

Thud.

The sound was slight at first. A soft thud that grew with each passing second. It fell into rhythm gradually and in the console room he suddenly smiled, wide and bright as he recognised the heartbeats he had seen on the scan. They sounded healthy and right and even though he could not see or sense much more of the child he felt relief rush over him. So far Clara was doing a good job, she was hanging in there, the baby was safe and protected. In his mind he wished he could reach out and touch but he saw that there were limitations and that wasn't his priority right now. Right now he had to find her and that meant facing that dark wall around him.

He knew now he was connect telepathically to the baby but he had to push through that mental tie to find its mother. He thought again of her face, and her voice, he dragged up memories good and bad and used them to push against the wall. He felt his breath coming with more difficulty as he exerted himself mentally, until at last even his body tired, muscles aching as he strained against the forcefield.

'Dear Gods…' he panted, 'Who set this up? Who has that kind of ability other than a Time Lord?' He strained again, his fingers deep in the interface, wet with sweat. His shirt clung to him.

Suddenly something snapped and he felt darkness tumbled down around him. The sound of muffled voices suddenly became loud and flew to his ears with deafening volume. He could hear Clara, and the crackle of a fire close by like gunfire. Somewhere in the background soft music was playing but the noise of it was overwhelming.

Staggered by the sudden breakthrough he stumbled a little and caught himself against the interface, removing his hands from its pleats, but the images lingered, one in particular as Clara looked up to continue her conversation with her companion. The Doctor closed his eyes again and focused as a figure approached.

A woman, of average height and kind features, older than anyone knew with wisdom in the few lines of her face. Her heavy deep red robes trailed the ground and swaddled the body beneath, shielding her from the cold of the planet's rocky surface. Around her fires burned brightly in grates, flickering and dancing in the golden braid of her dress. But behind her one flame in particular caught his eye.

'The Sacred Flame,' he whispered to the room as the picture became clearer. 'I offer the Elixir of Life and she refuses, but then where does she go? To the very place it comes from. Why? Did you change your mind, Clara?'

Karn. Clara was on Karn, in the care of the Sisterhood. He smiled. Even if she still wished to be mortal, she could not have picked a better destination for her confinement. Clever, Clara, clever resourceful girl. Inside his anxiety dropped a notch, he should have known she could keep herself safe, after all what was it Ashildr had said, she was experienced in travel in time and space, she wasn't the naive young human he had first known. He should have known. He should have trusted her.

His breathing levelled out again and he felt the sweat start to cool on his body. Finally the Doctor opened his eyes, certain of his next target. In his mind the image of the cold planet was fading but for Ohila's wise face. He felt anxiety for another reason now. She was a kind but formidable woman and if she was there with Clara she would have much to say about this situation.

The Doctor punched in the co-ordinates from memory, Karn was ever his sanctuary in times of need. Now it seemed it had become Clara's too.

And his child's.

He waited as the TARDIS dematerialised and watched the rotor spin above his head. He had to make amends with Clara, he had to connect with his child. He had to be there for both of them and ease his baby's passage into the universe. He wouldn't repeat old mistakes.

In moments the engines signalled that the ship had landed.


	6. Chapter 6

He stepped from the TARDIS and the chill hit him immediately. The chill and the dark. The parts of Karn that could support life were those covered in darkness and like a desert always cold. Like a desert it was covered in sand and rock, with little else surviving except the hardiest of plantlife adapted to the inhospitality of the barren plains. Now standing just before his ship, its blue panels out of place in a world that looked so primitive, the Doctor rubbed his arms and tried to bring heat to his hands. His breath danced in clouds before his face. It was odd to think how searing the sun here could be at other times, how storms could rage when the heat and the cool clashed and the rain poured in vast thunderstorms he had never seen the like of elsewhere. The planet was unstable, dangerous, unsafe to live on, and yet he always came back when he was afraid.  
He glanced around the immediate vicinity for any sign of the Sisterhood and saw the glimmer of torches and grates, leading in snake like procession across the ground to where they must be camped. The Sisterhood did not reside in permanent builds, having as they did to avoid the worst of the storms and follow the darkness. If as their world turned they ended up in the glaring sunlight of the desert during what could be termed as 'day' they would never survive, the heat being incompatible with life. Thankfully Karn took many months to turn on its axis and many years to circle its sun. There was time to move their nomadic procession to avoid the heat, although storms could still take them by surprise.  
The sisterhood were always ready to move and their accommodation reflected that. They largely lived in tents, made from heavy rich material and golden thread, the best available to keep out the cold. They were beautiful individually crafted round dwellings and they stood out against the rocks and darkness, and against the alien ships, crashed on the surface of the planet, brought down by the Sisterhood in case they sought the Sacred Flame.  
They were Guardians and unlikely ones at that. A small group of women who appeared weak in the face of any invader but who had the strength and wisdom of millennia. The Flame gave rise to the Elixir of Life, used by Time Lords and coveted by others. The planet was under almost constant threat from some species or malevolent warlord seeking immortality. It reminded the Doctor in many ways of Trenzalore whose town of Christmas he had guarded and fought for again and again.  
He crunched his way through shattered rock to the first of the torches and lifted it with one hand to light his way. The TARDIS was parked a distance from his destination, most likely kept back by the Sisterhood themselves, she was one of the rare few ships allowed on the planet at all and he should be grateful for that. The lights and flames before him became brighter as he walked and he soon was able to pick out the cluster of round tents and the central fire between them. He left his torch on the outskirts of their little dwelling and carefully made his way down to the camp.  
It appeared empty at first but he knew that to be the Sisterhood's cautious nature. Soon enough the drapes of one of the tents rose and with a rustle of robes he spied Ohila, their leader, made her way to him. She wore a headpiece in the same deep reds and gold of her dress and robe, and it fell to her shoulders, obscuring most of her hair and framing her face. She eyed him with slight suspicion.  
'Doctor,' she said, her tone giving nothing away. 'What brings you back to Karn? Do your enemies pursue you again? Do you seek shelter?'  
'No, not shelter, ' he said, 'Although they are pursuing me… as usual… but nothing out of the ordinary,' he smiled in an attempt to be pleasant. Ohila looked at him stonily.  
'You say they don't pursue you but I know that they do. So many of them Doctor. Time Lords, Reapers, Daleks, Cybermen. So many more. Both those who have chased you for thousands of years and those…' she paused, 'Who have fresh reason to want your head. Your head… and others near to you.'  
'She's here, I can sense her, 'the Doctor said. 'I connected with the child briefly.' Ohilia gazed at him, motionless. 'Let me see her, let me talk to her, I have to make this right.'  
'Do you think that's possible, or wise?' Ohila said, 'You're not supposed to be here Doctor, measures were taken…'  
'What measures?' he asked quickly.  
'Measures to stop you from finding her. Measures to keep you away from the child. The telepathic forcefield was agreed on by all of us.'  
'But not by me. You've no right to do that,' the Doctor protested.  
'Someone had to. The universe and all your enemies will threaten them both when they find out. And you won't be able to protect them.'  
'I'd do anything for them…'  
'And yet you insist on coming after them, placing them at risk once again.'  
The Doctor squared his shoulders. 'I'm the child's father, there is no-one better placed to protect it, to teach it. Clara can't, she's human, she has no telepathic gift.'  
Ohila regarded him coolly. 'There are plenty of telepaths who could aid the child during the birthing process, one of our Sisterhood for example or…'  
'No… it has to be me,' he insisted sharply, 'You cannot interfere with us this way.'  
'I can when Clara has asked for my protection.'  
'When?'  
'When she realised that this pregnancy is rather different from what she might have expected. She didn't expect to be away from you long, but then her symptoms worsened. She is a clever and resourceful woman, when she realised what was happening she didn't run to you Doctor, she came here to trusted friends.'  
The words stung, the implication he could not be trusted.  
'How long has she been here?' he asked at last.  
'Ten months,' Ohila said.  
The Doctor flinched. Ten months. So deep into the pregnancy. She would be experiencing so many symptoms, so much discomfort and the child? It would be faced with silence, its consciousness calling out to its mother unheard. If that wasn't rectified before the birth the consequences to its development would be irreversible. The Doctor bit down on his thumb and worried the skin.  
'You have to let me see her,' he said, 'Ten months… it's too long.'  
Ohila was watching him closely, 'I agree,' she said, 'Too long for the baby to float alone in the womb, unable to communicate with others. Clara and the child, they should not be alone.'  
'So let me see her. Let me see Clara, let me do what I can in these last weeks.' He felt a surge of desperation come over him. It was almost too late. The forcefield blocking the child's communication must have been almost unbreakable to keep it from him this long. He had expected perhaps to make contact with the bay at six or seven months but instead he had been pushed away all this time. Who was doing this? The strength needed to set up and maintain that field, he couldn't understand where that had come from. He shifted anxiously sensing something wrong.  
'Let me see her,' he repeated.  
Ohila watched him impassively.  
'Clara is her own woman,' she said levelly, 'She has made her decisions, for her and her baby. We are her sanctuary. She makes the rules. You are welcome as the father but there are some things you must abide by…'  
The Doctor stopped his pacing and stared hard at her, 'What things?'  
'She will decide if she wants your help, if she needs it. Your propensity for paranoia drove her from your ship. Your inability to allow her to live without fearing for her death sapped her of life. You cannot bring such fears into the nursery, Doctor, this baby is about the future. Yours, hers, and many others.'  
'If you don't let me tend to her, Clara won't have a future,' the Doctor growled.  
'She may be stronger than you think,' Ohila said, 'In fact I'm almost certain of it. Come, I will show you.'  
Ohila finally turned from him, her robes dragging through the dust, and slowly made her way to a round dark blue tent at the back of the circle of dwellings. Two of the Sisters stood outside and though on guard, and flames flickered in torches all around it, lighting the darkness with surrounded the tent. The light stretched out into the wilderness beyond. Ohilsa bent and raised the drapes, beckoning the Doctor inside.  
'Clara,' she said softly.  
In front of the pair was a large sleeping area well covered in blankets and pillows. For a moment Clara could not be seen, buried as she was in the warmth of the bed. Ohila stepped forward a little while the Doctor hovered nervously. He had seen what pregnancy by a Time Lord could do to a human, and he had heard the tales about his mother. He felt his hearts flutter in nervousness.  
'Clara,' Ohila perched now on the side of the bed, her hand reaching for one of the covers, drawing it back, 'Can you hear me? Are you in pain?'  
There was a grunt from the bed and a rustle and at last Clara pulled herself up with the Sister's help, pushing back the covers to expose the swell of her belly, and leaning heavily against the back of the bed. She panted slightly, out of breath from that small exertion and ran one hand through her hair.  
Her hair.  
The Doctor's breath caught in his throat as he took in the picture before him and he tried his best to disguise the shock on his face. Clara looked up at that wrong moment, saw the expression he wore and drew a deep resigned breath. She closed her eyes tiredly, frown lines deep between her brows.  
'Doctor,' she said, 'You took your time…. As you can see…'  
'I… I tried to come before… there was a forcefield…'  
'Ah, yes, forgot about that, pretty effective then?'  
'Very,' he felt a rush of sadness, 'Oh Clara, why didn't you just tell me, why didn't you say, I could have been there, I could have helped.'  
'You could have worried yourself into your grave too, or sent me to mine with your fussing,' Clara opened her eyes again and looked at him kindly. She reached out for his hand and he stepped quickly to her side to give it. 'When will you ever learn?' she asked him, 'I thought we had it all sorted.'  
His eyes wandered over her face, over the new lines that had formed there.  
'What do you think?' she asked when she saw the direction of his gaze, 'I must admit I didn't know about this aspect of Time Lord babies, its more than a bit weird. But apparently I haven't long to go.'  
He stared at her in alarm. 'Who told you that?' he asked panicked.  
'Not long to go with the pregnancy, then I'll get back to normal. Right?'  
'Normal…' he said doubtfully. He glanced at Ohila who looked away defensively, proof of her deception. 'Get back to normal?' he directed the question at the Sister.  
He felt Clara's hand tighten, 'Yes, I mean won't I? that was the understanding. Once baby is born it can't muck about with my timeline anymore? Doctor?'  
Slowly he raised his free hand and ran his fingers through her hair, through the grey and white that had once been deep brown. It still felt as soft as before.  
'Oh Clara…' he said. 'I wish I could have come sooner. I could have helped.'  
'It's just a few greys,' she laughed unconvincingly.  
'And the pain? The migraines and the stomach cramps that last for days?' he asked, 'And the noise in your head that stops you from sleeping?'  
'Ok so you know about that too…' she looked puzzled, 'I admit, not so great. But I just have to stick it out.'  
'Is that what they told you? The Sisters? That if you stick it out it will all be fine? Clara there's no guarantee.'  
'No guarantee? About what?'  
'About your ability to survive this…'  
Clara immediately turned her face from him, angry and disappointed. 'Again? You never learn. All this time apart, the lesson I'm trying to tell you here, it's not all about death and loss. I'm having your child.'  
'You're having a part Time Lord child conceived in the TARDIS. You have no idea what abilities that child has because you aren't telepathic. You can't communicate with it.'  
'So? That doesn't stop me being its mother.'  
'No but it stops it from learning, learning its boundaries, learning its abilities. It stops it from learning how not to harm its human mother.'  
'Harm me? Why would it?' she asked.  
'It wouldn't mean to.'  
'This is just you being paranoid again.'  
'Clara look at you, look at your face, your hair. Its already doing it, aging you, draining you. You're human, you don't have the strength to bring this child into the universe.'  
She rounded on him hard, her eyes flashing youthfully behind a mask of age.  
'I have all the strength I need. I should have asked for the forcefield to be even stronger if this is how you intend to be. I thought you'd be happy, a child again after all these years, after losing your family, but all you can do is fret and worry and tell me it's all doom and gloom. Where did your joy in life go?'  
'Clara please listen….'  
'No!' she flung back the covers and hauled herself to the edge of the bed. The Doctor caught a glimpse of her normally smooth legs under the hem of her nightie. They were pale and lined with veins. Clara panted again from exertion and gripped the mattress unable as yet to stand.  
'Clara I promise you, I'm not scaremongering. You need me here. I can help. I can link telepathically to the child, teach it how to control its gifts, how to reverse the damage it has done to your body.'  
'Stop interfering, you're always interfering, you just can't handle the idea of my mortality…'  
'Not when its staring me in the face, Clara look at yourself!'  
'I'm fine!' her voice rose.  
'You're aging. The child is trying to communicate with you but you can't hear, so its playing instead with your DNA, with your very cells, trying to pass on its messages. It doesn't know what it's doing but… its aging you after all. I was right in the first place…'  
'Shut up!'  
'It's happened before. It's one of the reasons why human relationships with Gallifreyans just don't work. Our children are difficult for Time Lords to carry, never mind humans, very often the mother… she…'  
'Shut up!'  
'You have to hear it, Clara.'  
'No, I don't!'  
'They die, they die, Clara, aged from inside by a child who doesn't know better but whose powers over time are running loose.'  
She fell silent beside him, lips pressed together, breath coming in short angry pants. He still held her hand.  
'My mother was human, Clara, and she was allowed to go to term.' He saw the change in her posture and her face slowly turn to his.  
'And…?'  
'And… and she died. The final weeks of her pregnancy were torment. My father refused to help her he was ashamed of his human wife and the child that was conceived naturally, rather than weaved on the Loom. She suffered until she went mad from the pain and from the sound of my mind. She was begging him to help but minutes after I was born she died. Every cell in her body had been tampered with, its lifecycle altered by a well-meaning child seeking to connect with its mother like every other baby on Gallifrey. She didn't have a chance to 'go back to normal' and that terrifies me. It could happen to you.'  
Clara rocked forward on the bed in an attempt to get up but fell back again exhausted. There were tears in her eyes as she turned to look at him.  
'Why is it never simple?' she asked.  
'Because it's us.'  
'Can't you just go back in time, find me earlier and prevent me going grey?' she asked hopefully.  
'No. You've kept the baby safe this long. The threat from Time Lords and enemies is quite real. If I showed up here it would put you both at risk for even longer. There is always someone watching me.'  
She nodded resignedly. 'So you need to hook up with the baby telepathically?'  
'Yes but first I need that forcefield adjusted to let me do this properly. Someone here set it up?'  
' Yes, it's no problem I'll get her, she's not usually far away,' Clara heaved herself up and paced slowly to a set of curtains at the back of the room. The Doctor could hear her speaking to a woman, explaining the basics. Requesting the field be adjusted. There was a muffled reply and then the soft sound of the curtains moving behind him.  
'You do realise you're asking for some very precise expertise,' the woman's voice said, suddenly clearer for coming through from the annex. The Doctor spun to face her, recognition immediate.  
She grinned widely at his expression, lips blood red. 'Well you didn't think these Old Girls from Karn could put together something so complex, did you? Don't be silly, Doctor, its Time Lord technology we need here.'  
'Missy!' he exclaimed. 'Why are you here? What are you doing to Clara? Why?'  
She sauntered to where he now stood and looked up into his face coquettishly.  
'Why do you assume I'm here to do bad things?' she asked lightly, 'Baby's going to need a God Mummy.'


	7. Chapter 7

He couldn't focus and he half suspected he knew why even if he told himself it was nothing. At first he thought it was Missy. Bumping into his old friend and enemy in these circumstances had shaken him to the core. The danger she represented was significant. If he'd been asked he would have put her near the top of the list of people and things to keep away from the baby and yet here she was, stopping by and helping out. But that wasn't even the worst of it, that wasn't even his biggest distraction.

He'd asked Clara where she had been. Reluctantly she told him, her features guilty. She had travelled for a few more weeks after the TARDIS had dropped her off post argument. She had hitched rides with passing trade ships and on one occasion contacted Ashildr. The pair had had a tense conversation around stealing TARDISes and Ashildr had agreed to give Clara a ride to Karn, because by this stage Clara simply had to get there and it was that or contact the Doctor. He protested loudly when she told him that but she quietly filled in her back story.

No, she couldn't contact him, because of everything they had said to one another, because of his inability to deal with mortality, because he would only bring with him fear. Fear and enemies. She had to keep the baby safe and she didn't want the pressure to become immortal again. She didn't chose Karn for its potential for immortality, she chose it for their protection. The planet was littered with the evidence that the small group of women could fight off the worst of enemies if needed and that's what would come her way, the worst of enemies, trying to take her child.

He still burned that she hadn't trusted him. He hated that he couldn't cope with her human lifespan and that feeling just got worse as he touched her lined face. Her lifespan was getting shorter by the minute, it was as though the universe had heard his fear and decided to mock him.

Now the Doctor was sitting on the bed, opposite Clara, his fingertips to her temples and his eyes shut. His face wore an expression of deep concentration and his breathing was slow. Minutes ticked by and he still couldn't form the connection, to Clara or the baby. He remembered how difficult it had been to knock through the forcefield when aboard the TARDIS, but he had expected this to work. Was it his ability, his focus or the pain he felt at her rejection of him during the pregnancy? The thought kept invading his mind.

Missy had said she'd opened a channel in the psychic forcefield to allow him easy passage. But this was Missy he was talking about. Why should he trust her? Why was she there at all? Why did Clara accept her being there? He'd pin down the answers but first and above all else he had to reach his child, stop its effects on the woman he loved from draining her life-force completely. He sighed and tried again, his muscles aching in his arms from sitting for longer and longer. He wasn't the only one who was impatient.

Clara fidgeted, running one hand over her swollen belly and frowning as the creature inside her kicked in protest.

'Can we take a break?' she asked.

He huffed and sat back, dropping his hands and flexing his cramping fingers, 'I've told you, I have to make this connection, the sooner the better.'

'Just a few minutes? My back hurts?'

'Yes and what is making it hurt?' he argued looking pointedly at her belly.

'Don't be like that, it doesn't mean to.'

'I know that, that's why I'm trying to communicate with it.'

'Can you sense it at all?' Clara asked, her brow knitted with new lines.

The Doctor looked down at his hands and let his face fall. 'No, nothing… well nothing substantial. A heartbeat but no consciousness.'

'But you connected before to find us? On the TARDIS?'

'The TARDIS interface acts as a magnifier,' a cajoling voice came lilting from the other side of the room. Clara and the Doctor both shot looks towards the chaise longue Missy reclined on. She was the picture of boredom, spread out like an Egyptian queen, feeding herself with small round alien fruits in a bowl. She raised her eyebrows at the couple.

'You're a rubbish telepath,' she told the Doctor and then held one hand to the side of her mouth, whispering to Clara 'Failed every assessment at the Academy. Hopeless.'

'Shut up,' the Doctor said, 'I still don't know why you are here, so if I were you I'd behave before I remove you.'

'Oooo! I'm quaking in my pretty pointy booties!' she mocked, her voice high, 'Quaking with fear and well… a little bit… excited.' She grinned and the Doctor turned away from her. Missy's shoulders slumped. 'Umph you're such a bore.'

'You're sure you've opened this part of the forcefield?' the Doctor asked distractedly, placing his hands on Clara's stomach.

Missy pulled a face, 'Well duh,' she stood and flounced her way to where they sat. 'Just because you can't find it.'

'I can find it, I…' he shut his eyes and tried to focus again. Everything was dark. Somewhere in the gloom her could hear a double heartbeat but he couldn't see or hear beyond it. He couldn't tell if it was a boy or girl. He couldn't see anything. He sighed suddenly and opened his eyes. 'I can't see,' he admitted.

'I can,' Missy said lightly.

'No, I'm not having you poking about in there,' the Doctor said.

'I don't need to poke about, how vulgar. Some of us are proper telepaths,' Missy said proudly, 'Some of us can hear from where we stand…'

Clara and the Doctor looked at her curiously.

'Baby girl,' Missy mouthed and then covered her mouth in an 'oops I let slip' gesture.

The pair looked at one another doubtfully and Missy caught their expression. 'You might as well believe me, there's a fifty percent chance of me being right.'

'This doesn't help,' the Doctor said, 'I have to get in there… so to speak… I have to stop it… her… draining the life out of Clara.' He watched her rub between her brows tiredly. She looked unbelievably tired and at least thirty years older. She frowned harder and winced. Immediately he took her hand, the picture of helpless concern, a father in a labour suite if ever there was one, and she wasn't even in labour yet.

'What is it?' he asked.

'My head, it comes and goes…' Clara explained, 'It's like the worst migraine you've ever had, doubled. Maybe tripled. Oomph,' she leaned forward a little still rubbing at her forehead. 'Going to be a bad one.'

The Doctor glanced up at Missy who did a little jig by his side. He rolled his eyes. 'No,' he said.

'Don't be like that,' she wheedled. 'I'm all you have right now. Think of how far I travelled to help.'

'You never help,' he growled.

'I helped when Clara and I thought you were dying, when you were having your little party.'

The Doctor's voice rose in anger. 'You locked Clara inside a Dalek and had me try to kill her!'

Clara winced again next to him, 'Shhh, it doesn't matter now.'

'Why are you on her side?'

'Maybe because she doesn't have much option,' Missy said, 'Maybe because the last time she had one of these episodes it was Missy that took away the pain when Old Lady Karn couldn't. Maybe because I am such a superb birthing partner…'

'Birthing partner?' the Doctor exploded.

'Every woman on Gallifrey has one… well we used to, Time Ladies, back when we did this sort of thing. This giving birth business is frankly messy and disgusting. Its outdated. There's no need these days. But if an accident happens… if a Time Lady finds herself indisposed, they use birthing partners, like me,' she pointed at herself proudly.

The Doctor ran a hand over his face, 'I'm not up to speed with this.'

'Well no, I don't expect you to be. Time Lords don't like to study these things, all icky and yuk. Anyway you've probably never got a Time Lady into trouble or I'd know, you've done it all by Loom like a good boy. And I know you've never given birth and you have different…' she waved at his midriff, 'parts,' she finished.

'Tell me about birthing partners,' he said lowly.

Missy sat by Clara and took her hand. She responded by glaring at her through the web of her fingers which held her painful head. 'Be careful,' she warned.

'Hush I'm not going to do anything to make it worse,' Missy said, a strange calm coming over her. The Doctor watched as her manic persona fell away and he was left viewing her careful and gentle actions. 'It's just like last time.'

Clara swallowed and nodded. The Doctor stared at her in alarm.

'Last time?' he flapped.

'I didn't have much choice,' Clara said, 'The pain got so bad. As much as I don't like to admit it, she's… been useful.'

'I came as soon as I heard the little thing,' Missy explained, 'I mean if I could hear her then goodness knows who else would.'

'Why would you care?' the Doctor asked.

'Why should i?' Missy looked exaggeratedly hurt. 'Doctor I have _always_ cared about your family. There was a time you considered me part of it,' she added softly with a look that was a thousand years away. 'I have never forgotten that, my own family wasn't exactly….' She trailed off, her features suddenly hesitant.

'That was a very long time ago,' the Doctor said darkly. 'Why are you really here?'

It took a beat for her to come back from her memory, return to the matter at hand. An odd play of emotions passed through her features before she became forcefully bright again. 'Because there are so few of us left, Doctor, Time Lord and Ladies, and there certainly aren't any being born.'

'There's a whole planet at the end of the universe called Gallifrey, go there and find the rest of them, encourage them to Loom if you must,' he grumbled.

'I don't think we want any more of their type,' Missy said, 'Poisonous pompous Time Lords. You and I, we know how to live up to the title,' she winked.

'You and I are nothing alike.'

'You know that isn't true… anyway I don't think I'd be very welcome back on Gallifrey,' she admitted coyly, 'Just like you…. I heard all about it of course, 'Get off my planet?' wonderful line but not one that encourages them to send you another invitation to hang out. But this baby, oh this baby will be very popular.'

The Doctor held her gaze in challenge. 'Again why do you care?'

'I'm not totally heartless my dear, I still have two, thumping away. And perhaps now I have a little more … maternal instinct.'

The Doctor felt slightly ill at the concept.

'So you came here to offer your great maternal insight?' he scoffed. Beside them Clara groaned and lay back down amongst the covers. She still held her fragile head and had squeezed her eyes closed.

'Will you two please just shut up. I wasn't exactly over the moon when Missy arrived but these are pretty unusual and unique circumstances. Who else could help me?'

'Oh I don't know,' the Doctor quipped, 'Me? The father of the baby? Why didn't you just contact me?'

'Please, not now,' she curled in on herself as much as her belly would allow and buried her face in a pillow. The Doctor thought he heard a small sob of pain and felt immediately guilty for arguing over her like that. He had heard whispers of birthing partners on Gallifrey but he knew nothing of what they really did, something hidden from the eyes of men and frankly something most men were glad to avoid. It was a historical role, largely, a thing of the distant past.

'Clara needed me,' Missy said levelly, adjusting her skirts as she sat, 'She needed a Time Lady. The Sisterhood might have the flame but half the time they don't know how to use it. I do. I offered to ease her pain, slow the aging process. Little dear wouldn't let me help for so long I thought her brain was going to start pouring out of her ears,' Missy said. 'Stubborn. I've always liked that.'

'Missy…' Clara's voice was small. The Doctor got the sense that she hated asking but that the pain was getting to be unbearable. He thought Missy would taunt her, at least tease but instead she didn't hesitate.

She reached for her patient and began running her hands slowly up and down Clara's forearms, steady, gentle pressure. Back and forth, back and forth. As the Doctor watched he saw a distinctive glow form at her fingertips. 'Here,' Missy said, 'Borrow from me.' The glow intensified and she continued to hold Clara loosely by the wrists.

Clara gasped and braced herself against the bed, shutting her eyes but relaxing the muscles of her face. Her frown lifted and as the Doctor watched the deep lines in her forehead seemed to fade a little. The glow from Missy's hands travelled over the full length of her body before slowly converging over her belly and disappearing, drawn within.

Missy sat back, 'There,' she said a little tiredly, 'That should take the edge off, baby has had a good meal, they're so greedy at this stage. Life force junkies.' She stood and for a second caught herself against the bed before she quietly made her way back to the chaise longue. Without a word of derision or jest. The Doctor watched her face, saw the darkness beneath her eyes forming.

'What did you just do?' he asked cautiously.

Missy, reclining again held her fingers to the bridge of her nose and settled back against the cushions. 'You know,' she said somewhat gruffly. 'Baby is using up Clara's life-force, I just gave baby some of mine. She's looking for Time Lady energies, a hundred time more potent than silly human energy. What I've given her should help her grow. I'm fine by the way.'

'Why?! Why would you do that?' the Doctor said. 'All you've ever done is try and harm Clara, kill me. Why would you sacrifice some of your own life-force? What if you can't regenerate again because you've given it away?'

Missy, weariness in every feature. 'Why would you care about that?' she asked in puzzlement, 'You try to kill me just as often. This might help you succeed.'

'That's enough!' he ejected the words forcefully over Clara's sick bed. 'Tell me this minute why you are here, why you are helping, if that's what you are doing, and why you've given your most precious commodity to a woman you only want to kill?'

'That isn't true!' Missy exclaimed opening her eyes, 'I _chose_ her for you, Doctor, you have me to thank. Why would I then try to kill her?'

'Why would you go out of your way to help?' he stood, exasperated. 'It doesn't make sense.'

Missy was up, challenging him, wobbly on her feet, 'Why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?' she asked knowingly, 'Even when Clara wanted me dead so badly? It's never simple, Doctor, is it, you've had so many opportunities, and so have I, but we never do it do we?'

The Doctor looked away. He knew the reasons deep down, the link between them, millennia old that could never be truly shaken. He and Missy had a complex relationship akin to family. On some level, always, he would forgive her. On some level, always, she would care for him, and perhaps, his child. His instinct said not to trust her, his hearts wished he could.

The adrenaline leaving her Missy staggered back to her chaise longue and collapsed back onto its luxuriant seat. He hovered for a moment but suddenly felt the will to argue leave him. Clara was behind him on the bed, silent and curled into a ball, surely his focus should be on her. He approached the bed carefully. Clara's eyes opened

'How are you feeling?' he asked.

'Old,' she joked.

'That isn't funny.'

'It kind of is,' she said. 'All that worrying you did about me, being ill, aging and dying and now this.'

He sat by her and Clara pulled herself up so the pair were propped against the head of the bed, his arm around her shoulder. She pulled up her top and looked down at her belly. Something moved under the taut surface of her skin and a wisp of golden light drifted up.

'Weird,' she commented.

'I think you mean miraculous.'

'Probably…' she took a deep breath, 'I think I owe you an apology.'

The Doctor ran one finger along the line of her jaw. 'I think I owe you one first.'

'You were just scared, now I know how that feels. Alien baby, weird aging process, Missy… it's all a bit….'

'There are ways to stop that aging,' the Doctor said quietly. 'Missy is giving you what you need, a little of it, but if you had your own life-force…'

'No,' Clara said resolutely, 'We've had this conversation and it became an argument.'

'But things are different. You're pregnant, aging faster…'

Clara shifted in his embrace, looked up at his face, 'That doesn't make it right to interfere with nature.'

'Nature!' he laughed bitterly, 'Nature? Some nature that choses to kill the mother for the sake of the child.'

'I think you'll find that happens sometimes…' Clara said.

'Well I don't want it to happen to you,' his jaw clenched as he said it and he pulled her tighter to him.

'Trust me,' Clara said. Carefully she took his free hand and linked fingers with him before tugging it to her belly, laying it palm down on her stretched skin. 'Try listening now,' she said. 'Direct line to the baby. She's just under the surface, wriggling about. See if you can…'

The sharp intake of his own breath gave him away. Whatever Missy had done had not only opened the forcefield channels but given the baby a boost to her development. She was wide awake inside Clara's belly, wide awake and emoting. A confused mess of feeling lurching from excitement to fear. A shot of guilt. Sorrow. Panic. The Doctor frowned trying to decipher the little one's message and he caught Clara's own look of concern at his expression.

'What is it? She's so active in there?'

'I'm not sure… I…'

The emotions flipped over again. Panic. Desperation. Rage. Forcing him to listen. The image of golden light and the sound of Clara's voice. It was fading, fading fast and he suddenly sensed what it was the baby was trying to say.

'She's killing you,' The Doctor said urgently, quickly standing, 'Clara, she's killing you and she can't stop.'

Inside his mind the child was screaming.

In moments Clara joined her; the sheets were soaked with blood.


	8. Chapter 8

8.

Chaos. Clara kneeling in the centre of the bed on all fours, blood wetting her nightdress, blood on the sheets, blood that showed no sign of stopping. She was crying, agonised, whimpering at each fresh wave of pain. She clutched the covers tight under her hands, her grey hair fell forward over her face and a scream ripped through her.

'Clara, Clara?' absolute panic was surging through him. In his mind he could still hear his daughter's fear, outside there was Clara and both knew there was something very wrong.

'What's happening?' she managed to pant. The Doctor came beside her and wrapped his hands around her seizing belly, he could feel the muscles harden inside her, squeezing and pushing, determined to expel their child. Even he could tell what her aging body was trying to do.

'Labour, its labour,' he muttered.

'Too soon,' Clara sobbed, 'It's too soon. And blood…? So much… something's gone wrong.'

He felt inside that the whole pregnancy had gone wrong, that somehow it should never have happened. The state of Clara now filled him with a horrible mixture of love for her and resentment for their child. And yet he cared. He worried. He wanted it to live, to communicate with him, to tell him what it needed.

The Doctor closed his eyes and tried again to focus on what the baby was expressing but the noise was overwhelming. Its fear almost obscured every other emotion, churning in darkness. He frowned and looked deeper, trying to block the external noise of Clara's pain. There, beneath the fear he caught guilt. It could sense as all children could the environment around it and by that means it could sense what it was now doing to Clara. It was draining its mother, over and over, for its own needs, aging her rapidly. Her cells had reached a critical point, her human lifespan almost finished. If the baby didn't stop their lifecycle would end.

The baby girl, now conscious and sentient after Missy's infusion of life force, had made the realisation that she was killing her human, mortal, mother.

'She's realised, what's been happening. She doesn't want to hurt you,' the Doctor said.

Clara gasped, 'Funny way of showing it.'

'No she doesn't want to… she's… she's…'

'Inducing the labour,' Missy said from across the room. She had woken from her slumber on the chaise longue in all the confusion and now stood rocking back and forth on her booted toes. She cocked her head and clapped her hands.

'Baby is coming early,' she sang to herself, 'How exciting.' She paused and looked concerned, eying the state of Clara and the bed. 'Bit messy this… more so than I remember… I'm not sure that's a good thing?'

The Doctor was on her before she could continue.

'What have you done?' he roared. 'What did you pass to the child?'

Missy looked shocked, big innocent eyes and a flabbergasted smile. 'Me? Why only life-force, only a little something to help her grow. And she has, hasn't she? Clever little thing.'

'She's sacrificing herself, she's tricking Clara's body into expelling her,' he was aware he was frantic and even more aware of the pitying look Missy was giving him.

'Well maybe…' Missy whispered, 'That's for the best? You don't want Clara to die do you?'

'I don't want either of them to die!' he yelled back at her as he rushed again to Clara's side. There was so much blood and her skin looked so pale. She was struggling to hold herself up as each contraction rushed through her. Her screaming had dulled to weeping, a soft plaintive sound, begging the pain to end. Her hair was totally white now.

'Both of them would die,' Missy said, her tone suddenly menacing, 'If we all did nothing. Someone had to step up, Doctor. If we left it as it was baby would finish Clara off and then die in the process. This is the best chance either of them has.'

'So it was you,' he spat out.

'Well who else around here is going to be objective?' Missy exploded, 'Not you, Doctor, she had to run away from you, you were so paranoid!'

'You are killing them…'

Missy threw her hands up into the air in frustration, 'No! I gave baby enough of a boost to think for itself. So listen. Just listen Doctor. Listen to the baby, to Clara and to me. Stop hearing your own terror and look at what is actually happening.'

In a way she was right there was no point in arguing, the labour had started, now was time to pray and try and help them all through it.

He had dragged Clara into his side and was holding her close. Her heart was racing but her eyes would not open. She was fading and in his mind their daughter's distress doubled, aware as she was on some level that it was her doing and trying to hurry along the hideous labour. He wished he could communicate better with her but he knew she only had the most basic of emotional reactions and no words. He couldn't even send a soothing feeling, as all he felt was fear.

Missy circled the bed, shark-like, but stayed back for which he was grateful. He needed to calm down, he needed to work out what to do. Over and over again his mind derived the same answer.

'The Sacred Flame,' he said, 'We have to use it, we have to save Clara.'

Missy rolled her eyes. 'You just never learn do you, that's the last thing she wants.'

With Clara still in his arms he rounded on Missy, glaring hotly at her, his voice rough. 'I don't care right now what she thinks she wants, she is dying. The baby is dying. She'll be grateful when she wakes.'

Missy sucked in a breath and slowly shook her head. 'Oh, Doctor, your Valeyard is showing. You can't just recommend a C-section can you? It has to be all dramatic.'

'Shut up, shut up!' he bent his head and buried it in Clara's hair. She wasn't even conscious and the emotions from the child were weakening too. He felt burning tears forming in his eyes. He didn't have a choice, he had to help her. Carefully he laid her down on the bed.

Then he ran for the entrance to the tent.

'Doctor!' Missy cried, 'What are you doing? Oh no you don't!'

'Why do you care what her beliefs are,' he called back over his shoulder as he ran, 'What is it to you if I go against her wishes for her own good…?'

The rocky landscape of Karn lay spread before him in darkness but he could sense the way. He had within him energy made from the Scared Flame and the two things called to one another. Even if he were blindfolded and deaf he would be able to track it down, because he saw it first in his mind. He quickly climbed over rock piles and scurried down hillsides. It wasn't far but he felt exhausted as though something was trying to stop him from reaching it. A different type of forcefield, one that took breath from his lungs and strength from his muscles.

Missy ran behind him, her purple skirts hitched up over her ankles. 'Doctor! You are making a mistake.'

'No!'

'I can't believe I'm the voice of morality! It doesn't suit me!' Missy complained as she ran.

He slid down an embankment and rounded a corner formed by two tall rockfaces. The light shone immediately on his face, bathed his troubled mind. There it was, the solution, the answer. He would take some of the flame, some of the life-force and save her once and for all. She might rage at first but she would be alive, she would calm down, she would have their child to focus on. He scuttled across the clearing to where the flame burned at the centre on an altar. Missy staggered after him.

'So… undignified… running… Wait! Stop, Doctor!'

He was almost at the altar when the Sisters stepped forward almost from nowhere. Their heavy robes dragged through the grit and sand and their footsteps crunched. Each wore an expression of displeasure, even anger. Ohila was at their centre.

'What are you doing?' she asked curtly. Above them thunder seemed to rumble on cue. They were part of the world they inhabited, tied to its elements, and their anger showed through the coming storm.

He was panting, dishevelled, his shirt had come untucked and there was dust all over his clothing. He raked his fingers through his hair desperately. 'It's Clara..' he forced out as he tried to catch his breath, 'Clara and the baby… they're dying…'

There was a rumble of consternation among the other Sisters but Ohila remained stony faced.

'How can you be sure?' she asked, 'What has happened?'

Missy, leaning on her knees to slow her breathing took the opportunity to confirm the story. 'He's right, she is, but she doesn't want this,' she waved at the flame.

'Have you asked her recently?' the Doctor hissed, 'Because she might well have changed her mind.'

Ohila was watching them both curiously. 'She is in labour?' she asked.

'Yes,' they both replied.

'And very sick?'

'Yes!' the Doctor replied, believeing he was getting somewhere, that they saw the urgency in a way Missy couldn't. 'She's bleeding, and weak, and the baby, she's so hard to read….'

'So both are fading,' Ohila remarked thoughtfully.

'Yes!,' he said desperately.

She looked at him in sad disappointment 'So why are you here?' Ohila said softly. 'Why aren't you with them, if you love them so? Has your obsession with immortality really come to this? Is it the only solution you ever consider turning to when it comes to your love for Clara?'

'What?' he stammered.

'She has a point,' Missy said, 'I more or less said the same,' she informed Ohila.

'Be quiet,' Ohila snapped, 'Your influence and involvement has been noted, and though I tolerate you here you are not welcome.'

Missy opened her mouth in mock horror. Ohila ignored her and turned back to the Doctor.

'So why are you here?' she continued, 'Clara lies dying and so does your child.'

'I came here to save her…'

'You left her alone…'

'I… I didn't think I just…. I had to get here in time,' he confessed.

'She will die alone, then.'

'No! The Flame….' He looked desperately between the Sisters and the flame upon the altar trying to calculate what to do, if he could take on a group of women with the gifts they possessed. The answer he knew, was no. 'Please…' he begged.

'What can you hear, Doctor?' Ohila said quietly.

He hesitated unsure of what she meant and then realisation hit him. The child, its feelings, its heartbeat, it was silent. Its loud cries of panic were gone.

'Missy…' he said softly. When she didn't reply he turned and looked at her, her face pale. He had never expected to see tears in her eyes, wet but refusing to fall.

'Missy, I can't…'

'I know,' she whispered and placed one hand on his arm. 'We need to go.'

'But…'

'Now,' she said a little more firmly.

His mind froze and with it his words. The silence could only mean one thing. Oh Gods he hadn't been there. He had gone against her wishes explicitly given and he hadn't been there. He didn't even know if Clara was alive but he felt suddenly sure his child wasn't.

'Doctor… _now_ …' Missy's grip on him tightened.

'I just need a minute,' he said vaguely. In front of him he saw a rush of movement as the Sisterhood abruptly swept over to the altar and lifted the flame. In a well oiled and rehearsed set piece they carried it away, vanishing into darkness.

'Yes, well _they_ don't…' Missy looked above them and nodded to sky, 'We need to move…'

At last he looked up.

'Oh…' he said. 'Oh… no….'

The Dalek warship cruised slowly into the atmosphere, no barrage of fire as yet, but a steady journey over the cursed landscape. It trained a searchlight on the retreating flame with disinterest and then looked away. So many times enemies had travelled to Karn for the flame, the Daleks among them, but this ship didn't seem interested in the fleeing figures of the Sisterhood or the wreckage of past attempts. It was looking for something else. Or someone.

Beside him Missy grew shaky, he could feel the odd sensation in her grip.

'What have you done?' he repeated.

'Nothing, nothing I swear,' she replied, 'Opened the channel for you, that was it. Although…'

'Although what?' he snapped his attention to her fully, stared down into her slightly fearful eyes.

'The baby, when it was… when it was so distressed, ' she chose her words uncharacteristically carefully, proof she was at least a little afraid. 'It's possible it was so loud the forcefield disintegrated, that anyone tuned in, using a magnifier for example, might have picked it up… Dalek warships they have telepathic scouts…'

'I know about dalek warships..' he snapped, 'We have to go, if they heard her, they'll be coming,' he tugged on her hand, 'Come,' he commanded, 'Run, this way!'

'Where are we going?' she asked him as she trotted alongside.

'Clara. I need to see if…' he broke off, 'And then the TARDIS, we cant fight them off from the surface of this planet. We need the old girl…'

They pelted as fast as they could across the desert like landscape , and this time it was easier to breathe as they moved away from the Flame. Beneath their feet small shards of rock flew up and the ground felt uneven. They staggered but kep going the tent where Clara lay coming quickly into sight. As he approached the Doctor felt his hearts leap from entirely different reasons to running. Reasons which caused him to slow before the entrance where he stopped waiting fro Missy to catch up.

After a minute or so she did, trotting to a halt before the heavy curtained entrance.

'Well?' she said.

'I still can't hear,' he confessed. Missy nodded slightly, a sign that she couldn't pick up any telepathic communication either. She looked up at the sky and the circling dalek ship.

'You have to go in,' she said, 'We don't have much time.'

The Doctor swallowed. 'I know. I…' his throat felt choked and he struggled to control his words, his tone. He squeezed his eyes shut.

What in Rassilion was he going to find in there. He had left her bleeding and unconscious from pain, life force draining, age catching her. He had abandoned his child, distraught and terrified, its first sentient experience that of killing its mother, its first decision, to sacrifice itself. The Doctor hid his face behind his hands for a moment.

'Doctor,' Missy pushed, her voice less sympathetic than before, 'Hurry.'

With a deep breath he pulled the curtain to one side and stepped in. He swallowed down a wave of nausea and tried to take in everything he saw. He had never been so frightened, not on any battlefield or when facing any enemy. He heard Missy follow him in, stand by his shoulder. She let out a low whistle.

'Be quiet,' he shot back at her. Cautiously he took a few steps forward, looked down over the bed and at what he found there. He covered his mouth with one hand.

Clara was lying on her back, her limbs twisted and thrown out around her, her hips at an angle. Her nightdress was hitched up and soaked with blood which spoiled all around her and deep into the covers and mattress. It was still wet in places but had started to clot, lending a darkness to it in contrast to the brilliant red smeared on her legs and hands

The Doctor felt a small sob of panic hit him and as it left his body it form the tiny word, 'Clara?'

There was no response. He stepped a little closer, the smell of the blood now thick in his nostrils. He had seen a lot of war, a lot of injury, but in those few moments the vision in front of him became the worst he had ever seen. His nausea increased.

'Where's the baby?' Missy's voice called from the other side of the room. The Doctor looked quickly around the bed and at Clara's still swollen belly before his eyes lighted on a bundle of blanket to one side of her. He was almost scared to look closer if it wasn't for Missy coming up beside him.

She looked over the bloodied scene on the bed, at Clara's lifeless looking body and the tiny child wrapped in sheets.

'I can't hear them,' the Doctor said. 'Well the baby, I can't hear the baby.'

'You are a rubbish telepath,' Missy said lightly. He turned to her angrily.

'How can you be so… so dismissive at a time like this? Look at Clara, look at what she went through. I left her here, I ignored what she wanted and I left, thinking I knew better…why do I always do that, why do I always treat her this way…?'

Missy cleared her throat and looked pointedly at the bodies on the bed. 'A rubbish telepath and also… an idiot,' she confirmed.

'What?' he said through burgeoning tears.

'Look at her hair…' Missy nodded towards Clara and the Doctor turned, looked at her hair, fanned across a pillow. He opened his mouth slightly but couldn't find the words.

'Back to normal,' Missy commented, 'Lovely shade of chocolate brown, not dark enough for my complexion of course but looks good on her. And oh look, do you know how else I can tell she's feeling better? Breathing. Breathing is very important in humans, or so they tell me.' She pointed at Clara's chest, rising and falling under her bloodied nightdress. The Doctor felt relief pour from is hearts to the coldest tips of his fingers.

'Thank the heavens,' he said. 'Clara? Clara?' he leaned closer over the bed.

It was then, for the first time, that he got a good look at his daughter.


	9. Chapter 9

'No…' he said, 'No, no, it can't be,' the Doctor reached forward but his fingertips fell short of the bundle at Clara's side. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned away quickly, 'No! This isn't right, this isn't how it was supposed to be.'

Outside there was a rumble of thunder and then, suddenly, the distinctive sound of laser-fire. It was still a short distance away, perhaps aimed at the Sisterhood or even the TARDIS itself but it would soon be on them. The tent shook a little with each blast.

Missy elbowed past him, grabbed the bundle and held it tight to her chest.

'Move,' she hissed, 'Stop being so emotional, control those pesky human feelings you inherited. There's no time for this now. Be a Time Lord.'

The Doctor was motionless, standing still by the bed, looking up at the ceiling. He turned to her, hollow eyed and seething.

'This is all there _is_ time for,' he corrected her, 'Look at what you have in your arms and tell me there is anything more important. Look at Clara…' he felt his pain well up and threaten to spill into the room.

Missy averted her eyes, glanced at the tent exit instead, 'I'm not disputing that, but listen… the Daleks are out there and they'll be on us soon. I have the baby, I will keep her safe, I swear, you take Clara. We need to be in the TARDIS or none of us are going to survive, not if those Daleks go hell for leather. Focus, Doctor.'

Her voice was uncannily earnest in tone and it stopped him in his tracks. She had sized up the situation and made a plan, and it didn't sound like it was trickery. He looked at her blankly, 'Why are you doing this?' he asked.

'I'm your oldest friend,' Missy answered impatiently, 'haven't you worked it out yet? We play games, you and I, but when it comes to it… I'll explain later… maybe, if you're good. Now _come on_.'

She growled the words at him, her usual unpredictable persona reinstated, and he finally shifted, leaning down over the unconscious Clara and taking her into his arms. He was afraid he would hurt her, but she was deeply unresponsive. As he held her against him he winced at the sensation of her blood on his hands, sticky and clotting. How much had she suffered when he had left her? Why hadn't he thought it through? She had needed him, alone at her most vulnerable, giving birth to an alien child on a faraway planet. He had let her down.

He couldn't do that again.

The Doctor locked eyes with Missy who arched her perfect brows and grinned, ready for something like an adventure. She cocked her head towards the exit and finally the two left the tent, emerging to a raging storm that cast a deeper darkness across the planet.

'It might help us,' Missy called over the wind, 'It's too dark to see anything, too dark even for Daleks and our low body temperature makes us harder to spot too on heat cams… of course Clara is a little toasty and might give us away.' She stopped and looked around the sodden landscape, rain now lashing at the rocks, horizontal on the wind. 'Which way?'

The Doctor closed his eyes and thought of the TARDIS and of home. Immediately he was rewarded with a sense of her direction. He hitched Clara more securely in his arms and took off away from the tent, past the flickering flames of torches and into utter blackness. Missy followed within touching distance, her figure a silhouette beside him.; a shadow. She stuck to him like glue.

Overhead the warship was watching them, floating close by. He could feel it like eyes on the back of his head and wondered what they waited for, why they didn't shoot directly. He scrabbled over rocks and slipped in the wet, catching himself only just in time to prevent him hurting Clara. He noticed Missy's hand grabbing his arm to balance him, while her other arm held the tiny baby. He tried not to look, or to think but the thought kept coming to him again and again as they ran.

If the Daleks knew, they would start firing, aiming to kill anything that moved. The baby was all that was keeping them safe, because they wanted her, that valuable commodity, that innocent little creature, they didn't want it hurt or it might lose some of its potential, some of its power.

If they knew. If they realised.

The Doctor felt the tears in his eyes but they fell only into the rain, unseen. They blurred his vision as the TARDIS came into view ahead and lightning flashed in their path. It lit up the deep blue panels in time for them to see her open her doors in welcome. The Doctor squared his shoulders and plunged inside, laying Clara carefully on the floor of the console room. There was no time to lose, with the doors slamming shut behind Missy, he began punching co-ordinates and instructions into his ship.

Missy paced around the centre console lighting dancing one set of fingers around the surface and eyeing up the roundels on the walls. She still held the baby in one arm, pressed against her chest.

'I like what you've done to the place; never thought I'd see the day the TARDIS let me in…' she mused.

'Special favour,' the Doctor said, 'I suspect it was the baby rather than you specifically.'

Missy shrugged and then appeared to accept this likelihood. She cradled the bundle now against her shoulder and began to hum, something like a lullaby, the words long lost. He remembered it from somewhere, from a long, long time ago. He wondered if she recalled it from the same place. It irritated him, scratched at the back of his mind, and it was out of place, there was no child here to soothe.

The Doctor frowned and paused his work, 'Do you have to…?' he asked.

'Sorry,' she mouthed and instead swayed gently, rocking the child.

He felt a deluge of anger form suddenly inside him, 'There's no point!' he snapped at Missy, 'No point at all in what you are doing.'

'You don't know that,' she protested, 'Oh ye of little faith You have no idea yet what abilities this little one has… she…'

Laserfire from beyond the TARDIS door stopped her mid sentence and both of them looked sharply to the exit. Now that they were in the ship the Daleks had taken the step to attack. Less likely to kill individuals by firing directly at them, it meant the ship could be disabled and taken along with hostages inside. They could then be assimilated if suitable or in the case of the child… the Doctor shook his head, he had no desire to think what they would have done to her, had she… had she…

'She's dead,' he told Missy bluntly, 'What you're doing won't help.'

Sparks flew from the sides of the room as the TARDIS began to take hit after hit, the Daleks throwing their finest weaponry at her. The Doctor was thrown off balance and clasped at the bannisters but it caused him no alarm. The TARDIS was tough, the safest place in space, and he was too angry at Missy to worry about Daleks outside.

She braced herself on the stairs and tried to get his attention. 'Could we get going?' she asked, 'All this lurching about is making me queasy.'

The Doctor ignored her and dropped to his knees next to Clara. Focus on Clara. He cradled her head in his lap. He smoothed back her deep brown hair, soft as ever and fully restored. He looked over her familiar features, her smooth skin, the pink of her lips, but then he noted her pallor elsewhere. He looked down over her body, the blood on her hands. She must have been conscious when the baby was delivered, she must have been the one to wrap her in a blanket; she must have seen she was not living.

And she had been alone. He had seen the possibility of her death and he had run. He ran when she asked him not to, when she asked him to trust in her to survive. His fear drove him away from her and as a result she had delivered and cleaned up their sleeping daughter as best she could before collapsing.

'Oh Clara, I'm so sorry,' he said softly. 'What kind of man am I to let you suffer the way I did?'

'A man! That's all! Time for sorry later,' Missy said a little desperately, 'Can we get going? Not really caring where… anywhere… I will even let you go to late twentieth century earth, _again_ , but can we please…' the Dalek weaponry struck again and the TARDIS shuddered, ' _please_ get going?'

He stood angrily and yanked the lever, sending the ship spinning into the vortex.

'There, happy? Is this all just amusement to you? Fun and games played with our lives?' he barked.

Missy looked hurt, a flicker of genuine pain rapidly covered by her usual aplomb. 'No!' she countered. 'I'm trying to help.'

'Help,' he scoffed, hands in his hair, tugging at the roots, eyes squeezed shut.

'Well all you've done so far is panic and flail and break your own rules. You need me in this, Doctor. You failed to take care of her, _you_ let this happen, it didn't have to be like this.'

He stood staring at her aghast and speechless. Her cruelty seemed to know no bounds and yet here he was, Clara unconscious at his feet and his child, dead in the arms of his enemy. She was right, he felt responsible, he _was_ responsible. The words he had shared with Clara in the Cloisters came back to him. Those and others.

He always meant well, but he often failed. He struggled to grasp what it was to be human and it led to so many mistakes. He always went too far for her, and when he did the universe had such consequences. He knelt again by Clara's side, he had to make amends.

'I'm taking her to the medbay,' he said, 'Stay here, let me know if there is any more trouble, the TARDIS will watch out for us.' The Doctor lifted Clara again and this time he heard her moan softly. 'Oh thank goodness,' he muttered against her hair, 'Clara, Clara, I'm so sorry, I've got you now, you're going to be fine, I promise…'

'Doctor…' her voice was weak.

'Shh we're going to get you patched up, in the medbay, don't speak just now.'

'The baby…' she fought and failed to open her eyes.

'Yes, Doctor, the baby…' Missy said meaningfully. 'Perhaps we could…'

'Not now,' he said a little harshly, cutting her off, 'Clara needs rest.'

The Doctor held her head against his shoulder and ignoring Missy's expression made to leave the room. He reached the corridor when he heard the Time Lady's voice behind him, cooing and babbling to the child. The sound of it cut deep into his hearts, it created a picture that was just so wrong. It should be Clara doing these things. Clara and the baby, safe in the TARDIS, exploring what it was to be alive.

Instead Missy, alone by the console with the bundle still pressed to her shoulder, hummed the rest of her lullaby. The Doctor turned to watch briefly as the last notes finished. She looked distant, impatient as she shifted from one foot to the other, blew air through her lips. She tapped her fingers on the console again. The sight made his anger triple as she casually strode around the room hopping occasionally. After a minute she stopped suddenly and peered into her arms.

'OK, I'm bored now little one, you're being a little slow,' she commented, peeling back some of the blanket, 'When are you going to do it? I hope you're not chickening out. I know it hasn't been a particularly good start for you, but it will get better, Auntie Missy promises you that…' she paused, thoughtful, 'You do know _how_ don't you? You can't be that stupid.'

The room was silent apart from the gentle hum of TARDIS engines. Missy prodded inside the blanket again and frowned.

'Maybe you just need a little jump start?' she said.

He should have gone in there and stopped her. She looked as though she was treating her like a doll to be played with and tormented. Did she not understand the significance of his silent baby? That she was three quarters human and therefore lost? There would be no regeneration, no Time Lord miracle, it would have happened by now, before he even found her with her mother.

Clara groaned against him and he fought with himself to prioritise. The baby was lost, Missy could talk to her all she liked but she was gone. Clara was still alive, in his arms, but she was very, very weak. He tore his eyes from the macabre scene before him and made his way quickly to the medbay, laying Clara down carefully and reaching for an IV. The TARDIS responded, cross matching blood, setting up a transfusion, working with the Doctor to stabilise the deranged vital signs she demonstrated.

She was so pale. He stripped her of her bloody clothes as the contrast seemed just too stark, red against white. Her bleeding had stopped but he calculated she had lost at least forty percent blood volume. How was she alive? How had she hung on? He touched her face and knew it wasn't for anything other than the hope her child might live. He mustn't tell her, he must get her to concentrate on herself.

'Hang on, Clara,' he said half to himself. He covered her with thick blanket, she liked the old style ones not the futuristic tin foil covers that contained heat but offered no comfort. If he had time he would find her Gran's, but he didn't want to leave her for a moment. The infusion of blood products and fluids running, he added some pain relief just in case and settled by her side to hold her hand and watch her blood pressure normalise.

His thoughts were a thousand miles away when he heard her voice. His memories had been playing like a film reel from the first day he had met her. Time Lord memories, so organised and chronological, so accurate. Now they were recovered from the memory wipe he could submerge himself in them and offer himself some reassurance, some escape even when Clara lay critically ill. Time ticked by. His forehead was pressed against her hand. He could see and hear her mind's sparse and surreal thoughts, generated by her unconscious state. He saw himself float through and from time to time the perfect sphere of emotion she had dedicated to their unborn child.

'Doctor…?'

'Clara, I'm here, you're going to be fine.'

He sat up and met her eyes as they opened, an involuntary smile spreading across his lips. The utter relief was overwhelming. Clara tried to sit up and he placed a hand on her belly.

'Stay still,' he said, 'You've been through an awful lot, your body will take time to recover.'

She looked at him blearily. 'I was bleeding… there was so much of it… so painful…'

'I know. I'm so sorry I never should have left you.'

She looked about her, scanned the room. 'The baby… where is she?'

A lump of ice in his chest, he swallowed hard. 'Look, Clara…'

'Where is she?' she repeated curiously. 'I managed to wrap her up…'

'She's with Missy,' he confessed.

Clara's eyebrows shot up, 'With Missy? What is she doing with Missy, I need her with me.'

'Clara…' now that he was faced with her awake and asking for the child he didn't know what to do for the best. Should he tell her? Did she remember it at all, like a bad dream? How could he say those words and break her heart? Your child is dead, Clara, dead and gone.

A noise from behind him interrupted his thoughts and distracted the patient.

'Did I hear someone mention my name?' Missy asked.

'Not now,' he shot back at her. 'Clara there's something I have to tell you…'

But she was ignoring him, looking straight past to where Missy was standing. The Doctor held his breath, his stomach churning, and then he saw the smile break across her face, her tired eyes sparkle. She struggled to sit up, pulled herself to lean on the pillows, and held out her arms.

'Please,' she said in a whisper, 'Please let me hold her. I had such awful dreams, I dreamt…' her voice trailed off as Missy stepped towards her and the Doctor turned to see. Clara gestured to hand over the small bundle she carried.

'Missy, what have you…? How…?' he stammered.

'Later,' she winked theatrically, 'Auntie Missy is capable of all sorts of fun things, but right now I think Mummy needs to see the little one.'

She stood by the bed and leaned forward, dressed as ever in her purple frock, looking all the more like an insane nanny. There was a soft glow coming from the object in her arms, one the Doctor recognised as a bundle of blankets. Carefully he pulled them back to reveal the child inside, shock registering in every cell of his body.

Clara's face was wet with tears. 'Thank god,' she was saying, 'She's OK.'

The Doctor saw Missy step back as she passed the baby girl to Clara, her hand reaching for the counter behind her for balance and her body seeming to sag in exhaustion. He caught her eye and she looked away quickly.

 _What have you done?_ he wondered.


	10. Chapter 10

Clara was resting, their tiny and as yet unnamed baby girl in a crib nearby. The Doctor had moved them to a more comfortable and homely room on the TARDIS, one with a large bed and an open fire with deep seats in front of it and a couch for two. Clara was curled at one end of it, dozing, her eyes struggling to open now and then at the sound of her baby's snuffling breaths or a crackling log.

He stood over the crib and examined the little thing under the quilt. She was of course quite beautiful and it amused him that she had a shock of dark hair, like her mothers, and spectacular eyelashes. Did babies usually have such long eyelashes? He couldn't remember. Some had rosebud lips, including this one. He leaned closer and tried to find some of his own features in her; a difficult task when he had been twelve selves over the centuries, and she could inherit from any of those. He thought perhaps she looked a little like his tenth and frowned, he had been so vain but he supposed it was the best of a bad bunch. A lot were grey haired and wrinkled and they definitely wouldn't suit.

He touched her cheek softly and opened his mind, listened to her peaceful baby dreams. The fear and panic was gone, the guilt. She was free of all of those emotions that had driven her to disconnect from her mother. Looking at her now she was a fairly typical baby. New born, small, pink, sleeping soundly after a meal of warm milk. So many people would have no idea what was going on beneath the surface. The Doctor focused harder and deeper, to her subconscious and to something golden.

She shouldn't even be alive. He had seen her swaddled in the blankets Clara had managed to wrap her in, with her skin cool and pale and her eyes closed. The shock of dark hair had been white; there was nothing within her to save her life. And now there was, right there, a golden sphere of lifeforce. She hadn't been born with that.

He stepped back so as not to disturb her and moved to the couch where Clara was ensconced. He knelt by the arm she leaned on and looked over her face. The Doctor ran two fingers through a lock of her hair, twisted it and studied its tones. No grey showed.

Clara opened her eyes slightly.

'You should sleep,' he directed. 'You've been through so much.'

'I'm OK here,' she mumbled.

He looked at her curiously, 'Why resist? You need rest. I'm here if the little one needs anything but she's as exhausted as you…' he peered over to the crib, 'And less stubborn. She accepts she's tired, she's fast asleep.'

Clara's lips twitched, 'I sometimes forget I need sleep now, four hundred years of wakefulness can muddle you up. The novelty has worn off; I feel like a failure when I succumb. I wonder if I will ever get used to it, all this lying about...'

'Yes, well…' he said taking her hand and trying to ignore the melancholy in her voice, 'You do need sleep. So come on.' The Doctor guided her to the bed, her protests much muted when she felt the weight of his hands on her hips and the slip of her robe down her back as he removed it. He drew back the blankets and bid her crawl in.

'You'll wake me if there's anything…?' Clara muttered.

'Of course,' he watched her curl into the deep mattress.

'Doctor?'

'Hmm?' he responded tucking her in safely.

'When Missy brought her to me… she was glowing. Just a little… golden… like you do…'

He froze above her and quickly tried to calculate what to say. Luckily Clara got there before him, drawing her own conclusions.

'I guess that's just a Time Lord thing right? Glowing when you're born. I mean when you regenerate it's like a birth in a way… She's stopped now anyway…' She yawned and settled. 'Gave me a bit of a fright though when I thought about it later, but then I thought she's only just born she won't be regenerating already.'

'Yes…' he said hesitantly, 'It's.. a Time Lord thing.' Well it was of sorts. He still wasn't sure exactly what had happened between Missy and the baby in the console room but he could hazard a guess. He hadn't seen Missy since she crept wearily from the medibay some hours before, and her absence concerned him for two reasons. The first, the one he always carried with him was the question of what she was up to. The second was concern. Ill-fitting concern but concern none the less.

He made sure mother and baby were both comfortable and safe and then went to look for Missy.

She'd made herself comfortable in the library and lay between an armchair and a footrest, her legs suspended and her purple skirts hanging down around them. She leaned on one arm and her hand covered her brow. She was completely motionless, on her lap an open book, her place marked by her finger trapped between pages. The symbols on the cover told the Doctor it was Gallifreyan. The subject seemed to be something to do with child-rearing. His puzzlement became greater.

Carefully he approached her but she roused before he could reach her chair and get a closer look at the text. Missy glanced up at him, angular features cut like geometry in her fatigue. Her lips broke into a wide smile for just a moment, a red trap in a pale sea.

'Doctor! How nice of you to come and see how I am! You are here to see how I am, aren't you? I've been feeling so left out of the party.' She pouted and then quickly took her feet from the stool. 'Sit,' she gestured, 'Shall I get some tea? I could be mother,' she winked in emphasis.

The Doctor sat on the footstool before her, suddenly tired and anxious. Missy was capable of many things, many horrific and twisted ideas. He almost did not want to hear what she had done to the body of their daughter.

'You look a bit green round the gills,' Missy said. 'I feel a bit that way myself.' She closed her book properly and dropped it to one side of her chair. 'No, wait! I know what it is. You're here to thank me, and thanking Old Missy feels a bit odd doesn't it Doctor.' She leaned forward, dropped her voice into deeper Glaswegian 'Sticks in your craw…'

He watched her grin a spectacular grin of self-congratulation.

'What did you do?' he asked.

Her eyes widened and her face fell. 'Haven't you noticed? Baby is alive! You must be one disinterested father not to noti…'

'I _mean_ ,' he said trying to keep his temper, 'How?'

She sat back again with a small flounce of her skirts and a roll of her eyes, 'Well then you should have _asked_ 'how?''

'Missy,' he growled in warning. Her eyes lit up and she arched one brow.

'Say it again,' she teased. The Doctor glared at her in response and she slumped. 'Oh never mind, I'm too exhausted for all that anyway. Little tyke took it out of me. I'm all aches and pai…'

'Took what?' he asked already knowing the answer.

'My regenerations,' she said, 'Those that were left.' Her voice had altered he noticed. Her playful tone was gone and her mask was slipping. This instead was another Missy, an exhausted one, somehow vulnerable and apparently in pain. He saw her wince as she shifted in the chair.

'She was dead, and you… you brought her back?'

'I did yes,' she looked at him steadily, her features serious. 'She couldn't do it alone, not enough Time Lord DNA, too human. Even the boost from being conceived on the TARDIS wasn't enough. She'd gathered all her energy and pumped it back into mummy…. She had nothing left. Didn't you wonder how Clara survived? How she regained her youthful good looks. '

He nodded yes and sat looking at his hands. 'She sacrificed herself for Clara, gave away what lifeforce she had.'

'I think you will agree that is a highly unusual thing for a foetus to do,' Missy observed, 'And I do like highly unusual. I thought from the beginning this one would have potential so I decided to help her out. She has a commendable soul.'

'Help her out? Commendable…? Was that really your motive? You like highly unusual? I know that… But you tend to like highly unusual that can be put to ill use,' the Doctor challenged her.

'Would I?' she said wide eyed, one hand to her bosom. 'Would I corrupt a tiny child for my own ends?'

'I put nothing past you.'

'Except apparently wanting your daughter, a unique and beautiful creature, to live,' she said quietly, 'That's completely beyond Missy. Why would Missy want that? Why would she want to do _something good?'_

'You can't just do these things,' the Doctor cried exasperated, 'There are consequences. If someone dies, you can't just casually bring them back as though it never happened.'

'Oh you've changed your tune,' she shot back at him, 'You've brought back quite a few…' she cocked her head at him to observe his response, 'Lets see… the best and messiest…. Ashildr I think her name was.'

'Yes… and look what trouble that led to…'

'And you've been trying to clean it up ever since,' Missy said, 'Might as well just go with the mess, you become immune to it eventually. Like a bad smell in the room.'

'No…' he rubbed his eyes, 'There are rules..'

'Rules!' Missy cackled, 'Since when do you stick by the rules? Since this Ashildr girl? Since Clara died? Well you got her back didn't you? You didn't do that by sticking to the rules. Why shouldn't you get the child back too, when you've got a friend who can help. You might feel you can't 'just do these things….' But I can.'

There was a pause while the atmosphere settled like dust around them. The Doctor's mind was whirling on what Missy had said and on how he knew Clara might react to more interference with natural timelines. Or would she? Perhaps her love for her child would change everything. Either way he felt it best not to tell her.

'It's so complex,' he sighed. Missy gave him a tiny smile. He paused heavily to think.

'We're Time Lords, of course its complex. I'm not totally evil, just as you are not totally good,' she said at last, her face pinched and tight, 'You, and Clara for that matter, would do well to remember that the universe isn't black and white. Grey is sometimes perfectly acceptable, preferable even. Why do straightforward? You know how it will all work out. Take a chance, do something different, take a risk.'

'Maybe. I know you love to interfere, play Russian Roulette. But that doesn't explain why you gave away your life-force to a child that is nothing to do with you.'

'She has _everything_ to do with me, she's yours,' she snapped looking over at him. 'That makes her family.'

'Family? So you're using her to worm your way back into my timeline? Do you think I will forget everything else you've done because you've done this?'.

'No,' Missy said, 'I don't. But I do hope you'll remember the things I did that were… better.'

The Doctor stood, feeling that he was getting nowhere, feeling like his brain was on fire from trying to make sense of it all, feeling like his entire relationship with Missy, with the Master, was as torrid and damaging as any could be. He knew she was insane, insane and very cruel. Her moods and whims flipped with the wind. She killed for fun. All of those things would forever overshadow what minor good deeds she might do.

But saving his daughter wasn't a minor good deed.

Family. She had considered herself family before and he had paid the price. Now she was reaching for that again, using his daughter, saving her. It was manipulative and unfair. But his daughter was alive.

Was he just being played? Was Clara? Innocent to what had really happened in that tent where her baby died. Well he could never allow it. He made for the door.

'Each time we meet, Doctor, one of us almost dies,' she called to him, 'But one of us never does and the next time we meet we thank the other for not killing us…. By letting them live. We go around in circles, doing each other the favour of letting each other survive. We tolerate one another. Now doesn't that sound much more like family than mortal enemies?'

The Doctor didn't reply or look back. He had to think. He and Missy had the most enormous history together but nearly all of it was poisonous.

But she had saved his child, giving it not just a little but all of her remaining regeneration energy, condemning herself to a shorter life, to an ending. Missy would never do that? Would she? She was too selfish.

He left her sitting by the fire, her skin pale and taut over her fine bonestructure. She was clearly suffering the effects of losing so much lifeforce at once. Like a bad regeneration. Missy was orientated but as soon as he was out of sight it was clear she was experiencing pains and cramps that subconsciously reminded him of what Clara went through in her pregnancy. As he watched unbeknown to her she clutched at her abdomen and tried to bury her head in the wing of her chair, her teeth gritted and no sound coming from her except that of her ragged breaths.

She was evil. And insane. She brought nothing but pain and trouble. So why did he feel sorry for her? He decided to talk to Clara, she was good with these things and she had let Missy tend to her during her pregnancy. She too had accepted some of her lifeforce.

Over breakfast the next morning Clara listened to his conundrum in full, although he kept back the bits about Missy reviving their baby. The idea of their child being dead and cold for a spell of any length made him feel shattered. He did not want Clara to have that image in her mind. Instead he generalised, told her how good Missy appeared to be, how much she was offering to help and Clara immediately chimed back with confirmation.

'She was great on Karn,' she said through a mouthful of toast, 'Nothing else helped with the pain. I know it wore her out too, donating lifeforce to me and the baby, she'd go and collapse in that ridiculous chair for long enough each time.'

He nodded, still looking for warning sighs.

'I always expected her to try something on,' Clara was saying, 'Catch me out somehow. So for the first little while I was always on my guard. But she never did anything. She didn't seem to be plotting,' she giggled, 'I mean she was still crazy, still eccentric and sometimes said the most inappropriate things, a bit like you…'

'What? I am nothing like her!'

Clara smiled, 'There are some similarities,' she said gently. The Doctor opened his mouth to protest. 'I'm going to get little one out of the crib,' Clara said silencing him, 'We need to find her a name, and soon. We can't keep calling her 'baby.''

He smiled to himself and removed the empty plates, settling down for a spell of name choosing. He never thought he would ever be in this position again. His family died centuries before, his children and perhaps even his grandchildren all gone. Now here he was about to sit down with someone he loved and name the little life they had brought into the universe.

He kept thinking of Missy. Hadn't she secured this life in the universe. She'd referred to being a god parent, he suspected returning life to a baby more than qualified her for that role. He wondered if Clara would accept that…. Oh what was he thinking? Maybe Missy had touched a nerve, one from long ago when they were friends.

'Doctor!' Clara's voice panic stricken from their room made him jerk. He rushed to find her there, standing before the crib, blankets in her hands. 'She's not there…'

'What?'

'She's not there, in the crib, she was sleeping…. I came to get her…. And she's not there.'

He glanced into the crib, the sheets and blankets ruffled by Clara's frantic search, sure enough its inhabitant was missing. He turned to try and reassure Clara, put his arms around her and make a plan, when he heard the TARDIS engines dematerialise and land before starting again, programmed to send the Doctor in the opposite direction from his child.

Only one person could be responsible for overriding TARDIS controls, only one person had the knowledge of Gallifreyan technology to shut down the Cloister bell and the TARDIS warning system. Only one person had access to the baby, and only one person hadn't been seen that morning.

The Doctor ran to the console room, cursing himself, cursing his weakness.

He'd so wanted to believe in her. What a fool he had been.


	11. Chapter 11

11.

The Doctor was scanning nearby systems trying to find Missy and the child. They couldn't have hopped far through the space time continuum, just enough to confuse him and muddle the co-ordinates. He reactivated the Cloister bells and the TARDIS interfaces, both spoken and psychic. His ship projected an image of Missy.

'Oops I've run away,' it said.

'Now isn't the time for joking,' the Doctor growled at the hologram, 'She's run away with my daughter.'

'Just getting into her mindset,' the TARDIS flickered and changed into Ohila, 'You were wrong to trust her but that is now by the by. Where do you think she would go?' it asked. 'What would attract her? What has she been toying with of late?'

The Doctor looked up from the console where he was trying to decipher the confused co-ordinates.

'Why would she go back there? The Sisterhood will stop her from doing anything.'

'Only if they see her, only if they are aware of her presence. They could well be distracted by other things.'

'I don't understand,' the Doctor grabbed a screen and searched the results of the scans for information. 'I don't understand in the first place why she would take the baby she saved in the first place and then…. Oh.. wait…the baby she saved,' he waved his hands, 'She used her last regenerations.'

'She is vulnerable,' the TARDIS said, 'She is weakened and increasingly in a lot of pain. She may have gone too far, given too much of herself and now she has no choice but to seek the Sacred Flame.'

Realisation dawned in his wide blue eyes, 'She's gone to top up,' the Doctor said, 'She's gone to replace her energy. A new set of regeneration, just like me. Well… the Sisterhood would never allow that…'

There was a hum and the TARDIS took control of the screen he was viewing and he found himself looking at Karn. He recognised the tent Clara had been in and some of the grates and fires outside on the rocky landscape. The storm had died down. He hunted for sign of the Sisterhood. Their dwelling looked like it had been vacated in a hurry.

'There is a problem,' the TARDIS said.

The Doctor typed in the co-ordinates to Karn as he listened, 'There usually is. What kind of problem?'

'Missy created the forcefield to block telepaths from hearing the child, to protect it.'

'Yes, that was my understanding…'

'That forcefield is no longer…' with that the TARDIS zoomed out on its view of Karn and it was clear that a number of ships from various species were circling the planet. Amongst them the Doctor could count telepaths of all ilks. Touch telepaths, distance telepaths, familial telepaths, the list went on. Some would be mercenaries for unrepresented species, others would be motivated to do the job themselves.

All of them had heard the magnified sound of the Doctor's child through their telepathic scanners. Rumours of Clara's pregnancy had been spreading in the universe even before she went to Karn the first time. Enemies of the Doctor had seen her swollen belly and realised quickly the value of her offspring. She fled but it had been too late. Since then they had been following, tracking in the hope of capturing the baby. Karn had offered a well protected refuge but now it seemed the Sisterhood were scattered, perhaps by Missy herself.

'Our child is down there with her,' the Doctor said, anxiety rising in his voice, 'Why has she taken her?'

'Protection,' Clara's voice came from behind him, 'She's taken her for protection. As a bargaining chip. She's her most valuable asset in all of this, as long as she has her in her arms no-one can touch her while she drinks from the flame. I don't believe this, she had us so fooled… and for so long. I must have been so gullible to let her in.'

'Clara! You shouldn't even be up!' he exclaimed, rushing to where she was leaning at the entrance to the console room. Her skin looked grey and there were dark circles under her eyes from the exhaustion and trauma of the last few days. He quickly reached to hold her upright as she swayed unsteadily on bare feet.

'You didn't honestly expect me to stay in my room did you?' she asked. 'Our baby is missing, presumably taken by an Insane Time Lady. I'm not going to rest.'

'You're still very weak.'

'I'm stronger than I look…' she assured him. 'especially where my child is concerned. Managed the birth, didn't I? In the end?' Her words stung a little but he couldn't tell if she meant them to. The birth she'd managed alone did vouch for her strength, but it also vouched for his weakness. With his help she moved carefully to one of the jump seats and sat down. She could barely disguise the wince and frown that it elicited. 'Karn, lets go…' she said.

'Clara… you're not coming with me,' the Doctor said beginning the dematerialisation sequence. 'You are far too fragile. When we land, I will go, alone, and retrieve our baby.'

She shook her head, 'You saw all those ships, and Missy, if she drinks enough of that stuff… its dangerous, really dangerous. You can't face all that alone.'

The Doctor turned his back to her and yanked the lever to dematerialise. The engines roared and the rotor spun. He braced himself against the console.

'I can and I will,' he said. 'You will stay here, no arguments.'

'But…'

'Clara!' he snapped, 'You were moments from death and you are still weak. I know that one day I will lose you but I'm hoping I can stretch that until you are ninety not twenty nine.'

'Four hundred and ninety,' she corrected softly with a little smile. 'Remember I've been away for a while… and that's why you should let me help. I know what I'm doing, I've been in some alien type jams on my own.'

'No… Clara,' he was suddenly overcome, 'Please don't make me lose you any earlier than I already envision. If you want me to accept that you are human, that you are living and breathing, then at least let me care for you properly, let me keep you safe. If all I have is sixty years… do that for me at least.' He turned away from her and tried to bring himself under control again, his eyes burned. He heard Clara slip off the chair and carefully make her way to where he stood. She wrapped her arms around him from behind.

'I'm sorry,' she said, 'This is a mess. I don't quite know how it got this bad.' He patted her hand and then brought it to his lips to kiss, the whole time watching the screen which showed the surface of Karn. At last he let go of her hand and turned to her.

'Please be careful,' Clara asked of him. He looked down at his hands, withdrew the screwdriver from a pocket.

'I will,' he said, 'You stay put, promise me.'

Clara nodded and he carefully examined her face for mistruths, but Clara could always fool him when she needed to, when it was most critical. He bent and kissed her mouth once, and made his way to the door, snapping his fingers for it to open.

The darkness of Karn lay before him and with it uncanny silence. The world usually hummed with wind, or the rhythm of rainfall. On a clear night he could often hear the Sisters around their fire playing ancient instruments and millennia old songs. Tonight there was nothing, except, he realised when he turned his face to the sky, the dim lights of cloaked warships and the softest pulse of their engines. Oh this was bad. The Sisterhood, Missy and his baby, somewhere in the dark and a dozen enemies waiting to find them.

He'd best make a start. The Doctor glanced back into the TARDIS interior, caught Clara's eye by the console and then snapped his fingers. The doors shut and the darkness grew thicker. He lit his way with the sonic screwdriver and opened his mind hoping to pick up the sound of his daughter. Every other creature in the skies above seemed to be able to hear. He as a touch telepath was at a disadvantage but she was blood and that meant there was a link anyway. If only he could find it. He climbed on and on in silence waiting for flames to come into view.

After what felt like endless time walking they finally did. He hunkered down behind a rock and looked over a make shift campsite below. Fire stilled burn in the cooking grate and in torches around the centre clearing. The style of the camp was definitely that of the Sisterhood but he couldn't spot any members. Considering himself safe he made his way down, checking in tents and doorways.

He was peering inside the largest tent of the camp when the voice came from behind him.

'You're too late,' she said and turning he found Ohila, always Ohila, oldest and wisest, blessed with Time Lord blood, she always survived. 'My Sisterhood have fled, I told them too.'

The Doctor looked horrified, 'Why? The Flame, it's your duty…'

She laughed painfully, 'Our duty to protect the Flame? Yes, it is Doctor and we have for century after century. But never have we faced such a barrage of enemies at once and never has one reached the Flame and drunk from it before now.'

'What?' his hearts sank.

'Your old friend, Missy, is not long come to this planet. She was determined to have her fill.'

'And you didn't stop her?'

'No…' Ohila drew out the word, 'Of course not. Not when she carried a babe in arms.'

'No!'

'We could have killed her, perhaps we ought to have, but she is using your child as a shield, as a bargaining chip, a trade off. No-one knows yet what that child is capable of, or her role in the future, but she is yours, she is unique and we could not bring ourselves to harm an innocent. Innocent now… but I can guarantee that if she spends much more time with Missy her soul will be corrupted by what that creature gives her of herself; her knowledge, her beliefs… her moral code, all being absorbed as each minute passes by your baby's mind, touch telepathy can be a powerful thing.'

'She's already given her, her regenerations…' the Doctor said quietly, his eyes wide. 'She brought her to life, she was still born…'

Ohila's wise face registered shock. 'Then it is worse than we thought. She has toyed with timelines, played God to the child, there will be consequences if this is allowed to continue.'

'I have to find them,' the Doctor darted past Ohila to a worn track behind the largest tent. He knew that this track and many others around the planet led to the sacred flame but he did not know what truly lay ahead of him. Had Missy really filled herself with the Flame? Too much would send her mad if she weren't there already. He had only heard rumours of the other powers it could lend; telekinesis, distance telepathy, they were just the relatively harmless ones, the others could be used in anger and Missy knew all about anger. She might have played god recently, but if she consumed the Flame she would be a demi god in reality.

He scrabbled through the rocks and sparse plants, following the route laid out on the ground. It was his hope to approach Missy quietly, catch her off guard, maybe even be able to retrieve his daughter depending on where he found them and the layout of the place. He opened his mind again and again but still could not hear her, so it was a shock when he slithered down a rock face to come across a clearing brightly lit and surrounding an altar; one of the many for the Flame on the planet as the Sisterhood travelled.

His baby lay in the centre of it under the bright burn of the Scared Flame. The Flame itself was tall and bright held in a small cone of bronze. From that a syphon and a tap from where its hot lifegiving essence could be drained. The Doctor froze, watching as the baby's tiny limbs waved and jerked, seeking contact with the woman who had just laid her down. Missy glanced over at her and let her painted nails walk a path over her rounded little belly.

'Mine,' she said smugly. 'Oh you and I, snooks, we are going to have such fun.'

He couldn't stand it and emerged from the rocks, stepping quickly into the well lit circle around the altar. Missy heard the crunch of gravel and turned to meet him, her face oddly shadowed by the quality of the light, lending her a frightening gauntness.

'Hello,' she said primly, skipping forward. 'You took your time,' she looked around her in exaggerated sweeps of the clearing, 'No Clara?' she asked in her singsong voice, 'Still feeling a bit peely wally?'

'Shut up!' the Doctor commanded her. 'What do you think you are doing?'

'Exactly what it looks like, I've had a wonderful taste of this Flame stuff,' she reached to the altar and produced a tankard. From the top of it wisps of gold could be seen rising. 'You have to know how to get it over, it's a bit… burny…' she added, 'But overall not bad, eight out of ten with the added benefit of extra lives. I feel quite zingy and baby…. Oh well baby she's something else, she's getting all the benefits.'

'What have you done to her?'

Missy frowned, 'Put it this way it gives a new meaning to 'SMA Gold Formula.' This little one is on the real deal.'

'You… she's been given…' he looked at the Flame, undulating softly in the dark of Karn's night, lighting the circle around him. Millions had tried to reach it, taste it, benefit from its life prolonging elements. The Sisterhood had fought them all and now in the face of a woman with a baby they had backed down. His child had been fed from the Flame. Dear Gods what effect had it had on her hybrid genetics? He stepped forward to reach for her…

The Doctor was thrown backwards and landed hard against the rocks, his lower back taking the greatest part of the blow. For a moment the wind was knocked from him and tears sprang to his eyes, the force had been incredible and there had been no warning.

'Oopsie!' Missy said covering her mouth with two fingers in a coquettish gesture. 'Should have warned you… actually no more fun this way. Forcefield, changed it up a bit. Instead of blocking baby's thoughts so others can't read them, now it blocks nasty telepaths from getting to her.' She looked up at the sky, to where the Doctor suspected , hundreds of cloaked and uncloaked ships waited. 'I know they're coming,' Missy said, her jaw set, 'But we can more than handle them now.' She leaned over the baby once more, straightened its playsuit, 'Can't we snookums, you're going to be such a big help to mummy, and then when this is over we can fly away,' she looked up at the Doctor, 'In your TARDIS of course,' she said, 'Where did you park it?'

The distinctive sound of the TARDIS engines appeared on cue, and Missy clapped her hands. 'Oh that's good, how did you do that?' she asked him as he swung around to see it appearing in the middle of the rocks behind him. The door opened and Clara, holding herself up against the frame, appeared in the door.

'Get back inside,' the Doctor ordered.

Clara ignored him, looked past him to where the baby lay on the altar. 'I'm not going anywhere,' she said, holding her side painfully.

'That's a pity,' Missy replied, 'Because it's about to get messy and you're just going to get in the way. We don't want to confuse snookums here….' Missy stepped forward, her smile morphing into the predatory grin of a snake, 'Snookums has a new mummy now, a proper mummy, a Time Lady mummy.'

'Get away from my child!' Clara spat out. 'You are not her mother!'

There was a mechanical sound from above them, followed by dozens of similar groans and whooshes. The three looked up at the sky. Missy's smile grew wider while the Doctor's shock made his eyes grow large. He knew there were stars above somewhere, behind the warships that waited on them.

It only took seconds before the landing parties began appearing, transported from their ships.

'Clara, inside, now!' he pointed to the TARDIS, but she shot a look at him that he had seen before many times. Weak and dizzy still she shoved herself off from the door of the ship and propelled her small body across the boundary between the rocks and the light circle. She stumbled but kept going, making for the altar, utterly possessed with a mothers drive to protect her child. Missy folded herself over in mirth, resting her hand son her knees, cackling.

'Oh very good, not a telepath so in you come through my little forcefield. But I don't know what good you think it will do, on your own in here… with me.' Slowly she straightened up and began gradually closing the gap between her and Clara until they stood on either side of the altar. Clara was leaning on it, gasping, pale and faint. Missy was dancing now and then, glancing up at the host of enemies she felt certain she was about to destroy. She took a sip from her tankard and set it down with a bang.

'Lets get to work,' she said, 'Destroying the universe!' She pulled a weapon from her petticoats.

The Doctor pushed against the forcefield again, tried a setting on the sonic, if he could just bring it down, bring it down and the somehow escape with Clara in the TARDIS, Missy would be left to clear up the mess of the invasion taking place around him. He struggled with a Sylurian and booted another unidentifiable alien hard in the guts.

'Come on,' he growled at the sonic, 'Don't let me down now, disable the blasted thing!'

In the meantime Missy was waving at the sky, encouraging enemies down to join her.

'That's right my lovelies, down you come, come and meet Mummy Missy and her precious little package, Snookums, come and see what we have for you…' her voice slowed and deepened and her eyes burned with the insanity the Doctor had long known was there. He tried another setting. Nothing.

'What did you just call yourself,' Clara asked her. Missy took a break from summoning aliens and looked back at Clara curiously.

'I called myself… Mummy,' she exaggerated the syllables.

'I think you'll find that's my title,' Clara said, her face flushing with anger. Between them her baby wriggled helplessly.

'No, dear, I do am much better job. I mean… she wasn't even _alive_ when I found her.'

Clara's mouth opened but she struggled with the words. 'What?' she stammered.

'I brought her back to life, I gave her my lifeforce. Why else do you think I needed to come here, I had none left, the greedy little thing. Now of course we both have a full tank… but actions like that, raising babies from the dead, they earn you a lot of points on the Who is Mummy Competition.'

Clara pale and shaken would not be swayed. 'She's mine, you might have created a tidal wave in time by bringing her back, but I _created_ her and I will care for her.'

'What makes you think you're up to it?' Missy asked, 'A special baby like this, so unique, so coveted, risen from the dead no less, how can a skinny little human like you care for her properly. Protect her from all this? She was born to be a princess in this universe, a princess to my queen. Powerful, immortal, eternal,' she raved on.

'I'm her mother,' Clara said levelly, 'And I can tell you now she isn't going to be a princess, not to you or anyone else. She's going to be her own person, I'll raise her to be independent, educated, strong.'

Missy burst into laughter, 'Oh Clara, you won't be raising her at all…'

'You can't stop me, in a moment the Doctor's going to get in here and rescue both of us and then we're out of here, away from you, away from this madness.'

'That isn't what I meant,' Missy looked at her pityingly.

'What?'

'I meant you won't be raising her because you won't be alive.'

'You can't threaten me!'

'Oh my dear I don't have to.' Missy laid a hand on Clara's, 'You're human, you're barely going to get this one past primary school.'

Clara knit her brow, confused.

Missy tutted. 'Let me explain for the slow of brain,' she said. 'This one is at least a quarter Time Lord, more now that I've given her her special milk, and being conceived on a TARDIS, it does things to your lifespan…. She'll grow up slow, plenty of extra time to learn… but it does mean that you…' she prodded Clara in the chest, 'You will be dead pretty early on. She wont even remember you… you know what it's like don't you, to have a dead mother?'

Clara stood looking at her dumbfounded for a moment. 'Doctor!' she called. He could hear her over the increasing number of alien thugs he was dealing with at the outskirts of the forcefield but he was rather too tied up to respond. He knew she wanted him to verify what she had been told however and it pained him. Clara, clinging hard to her right to be human, to live a normal life and lifespan, to steer clear of anymore cheats on her timeline, and now she was being told she wouldn't see her child grow up.

She wouldn't be able to protect it. From all of this.

He blasted the forcefield free with his sonic and there was a rush of bodies over him, fighting their way forward, dozen upon dozen heading for the altar. Gods. Missy turned and with her own weapon beat a row of them back but it looked at first glance like she had underestimated. Not to worry, she reached for her living shield.

But Clara had got there before her. Missy was too busy admiring her handiwork as the aliens poured from their ships and she missed her moment to lift the baby into her arms. The thing they had all come for. They pushed Missy aside and she landed hard on the ground, her pristine dress muddied with dust.

'Wait!' she cried but her voice was lost in the din.

The Doctors sonic cut a swathe through the aliens and he made straight for Clara, his arm around her shoulder propelling her away from the altar and towards the TARDIS she had parked so close by. He mentally thanked the Gods that she was such a good driver and then again when the ship flung open its doors. He knew that behind him a war had started, one that might last for centuries, but the priority was not to apply balm to that situation but to save Clara and the baby. Always the priority, no matter how hard he tried, he would always move the stars for her if that's what it took. He hoped she understood.

They stumbled into the TARDIS and the doors slammed shut. Clara collapsed by the console, the baby against her shoulder.

And a tankard of golden liquid by her side.


	12. Chapter 12

Into the relative safety of the vortex, the TARDIS engines roaring with urgency and the emergency lights coming on overhead casting a red glow over the console room. The Doctor quickly cloaked his ship and pulled the monitors towards him to check for followers. It was the one very big advantage of a Time machine; difficult to chase in an ordinary warship. He held his breath. There were no pursuers, but what he did see filled him with dread.

Timelines, dozens of them, materialising in the vortex and changing before his very eyes. Timelines that he had always thought to be set in concrete, fixed points, histories of civilisations and planets on the edges of galaxies, peaceful beings, traders and farmers not being dragged into a war that had started on Karn. Nominally a conflict about the baby and what she represented, a hybrid child with, he read, seemingly magic powers, but in reality more about bigotry and hatred, excuses to fight that were millennia old.

The universe would never be the same. And if it was never the same, if fixed points were tampered with… he zoomed in the monitor… there would be Reapers, and rifts, leaks of time from one dimension to another, disintegrating walls, even more than there had been after Trap Street. Everywhere they went Reapers would potentially be waiting, and Time Lords, and others. He had never expected all of this from one child and then it occurred to him she was no longer just one child, she was one child plus undiluted full strength lifeforce. She was child version 2.0 with upgrades. She would have abilities that had not been seen before and the potential to change worlds. The Doctor frowned, conflicted. His hearts had broken at her death, but that one death might have prevented all of this and the billions of lives about to be lost in conflict. So would he change it if he could? Would he stop Missy from bringing her back? And he felt himself think, no.

A small noise from his daughter turned his attention immediately back to her and to Clara, still propped against the other side of the console facing the TARDIS door. Her eyes were closed in exhaustion. In her arms the baby lay safely supported against her chest, one little hand reaching upwards intermittently searching. She would be looking for a response to her telepathic messages but of course Clara could not hear. Though she would feel the physical comfort of her mother, she would feel cut off and alone. The Doctor rounded the console and lowered himself beside them to help.

He looked down at the child at the centre of all the chaos and felt a welling of relief and love. No, he would never wish this undone. Carefully he let her wrap a hand around his finger and was immediately hit with a barrage of confusion from recent events. Still unable to form words the feelings swirled in her mind and so now in his, projected with images of what had happened on Karn and the odd feel of the golden liquid Missy had encouraged her to drink. She hadn't known any better and was thirsty so she had accepted, Missy had always been kind before. There was a strange burning sensation, a closeness of breath which had caused her panic and pain, and then something indescribable had changed in her body and she knew it was important, and forever, but she didn't understand what or why.

The Doctor did however. He had experience similar himself when given his regenerations. He had no way to tell his child's lifespan but he was sure it was now closer to his own than to Clara's despite the baby's largely human DNA. Would she regenerate like him? He couldn't tell, but she had already defeated death once with Missy's help.

Missy, ah there was a conundrum. What was driving her? What was she really up to? Would she stay away? There was one way he might be able to tell, if his baby's memory was designed like his to copy exactly events around her. He sent a wave of reassurance to her and then tested her walls, paper thin on a telepathic scale.

He settled against the console and kept hold of his baby's hand. He could see Missy at the altar from the perspective of the child, leaning over her and adjusting her sleep suit, she was almost tender in her actions and when she spoke her voice lacked the pitch of insanity it often carried. Her features fell into a natural expression, not forced or theatrical, and if anything rather sad. It was when she was like this he saw evidence of his old friend and it hurt him most. She hadn't always been dangerous or bad, there was a time she was merely eccentric and fun, a time he had trusted her with his life and she had reciprocated. They had been inseparable.

In the quiet of his baby's memory he listened to what she had to say.

 _'_ _There that's better snooks, isn't it, clean and dry,' come to Mama,' he felt her slide her hands along the baby's ribs and lift. The view changed and he realised the baby was now in her arms. He could hear a double heartbeat to one side._

 _'_ _Now for din- dins, and not your usual second rate milky nonsense. Mummy has something special for you, something golden for a unique girl. Do you know how special this is?' she waved a baby bottle glowing with liquid above his daughter's face,' Do you know how many people, good and bad, want just a sip of this? And they are all up there,' she looked to the sky, 'All waiting to get their hands on you because you are going to be powerful. Well they won't touch you… not ever…' her tone changed suddenly. 'Not ever, you're mine now, no-one will take you from me, no one will hurt you or they have me to deal with,' she turned back to the baby, 'And between you and I, I've had my fill of this yummy stuff too and I feel much, much better… here, drink up.'_

 _The feeling of the thick golden liquid in her mouth, sweet at first, encouraging her to drink and then the burning, but the Doctor chose to focus still on the memories of Missy who watched over her. She was humming the lullaby he had heard before and he watched as tears formed in her eyes. He suddenly recognised the tune as a folk song they had learned together as children._

 _Missy leaned conspiratorially into the eye line of the baby. 'I had a daughter once,' she whispered, glancing around for witnesses, 'But she went away one year and never came back. She never said why but I could tell she was angry. She hated me I think, hated what I was, who I had become…at the time I disagreed, blamed her for going, being unable to love me, but maybe…' she paused and looked up, stopping the tears from falling, saw the warships in the sky. After a moment she looked back at the baby, faked a smile, elevated her voice, the mask slipping back into place. 'I have a few of her things…' she said brightly, 'maybe you could have them when you are big enough?'_

The image faded and when the Doctor looked down he saw the baby was sleeping, exhausted from the intensity of the mental connection. He had seen enough anyway. He had long suspected Missy's complexity and this only went on to demonstrate what she had already told him about grey areas. She had lost her family, just as he had, for not dissimilar reasons. Now there was a baby girl, a little Gallifreyan jogging her memory about the child she had lost. Most people would hurt at the sight. The difference with Missy was she was just insane enough to try and make her her own. He had not heard the end of it, he was sure.

But for now. For now there were other matters to tend to. He looked down between himself and Clara, at the tankard she had lifted from the altar as she made her escape. Life force in its purest form, capable of curing disease, extending lifespans and, if enough was consumed, granting immortality. The most coveted substance in the universe and one that his already unusual child had partaken of at Missy's behest. She seemed fine, but he couldn't really tell the effects. She certainly didn't need more, so there could only be one explanation as to why there was a tankard of it on his ship.

Clara. Clara had taken it with some intent but what? Its healing properties? He glanced over her body, leaning awkwardly on the console, her skin a disconcerting shade of grey even under the emergency lights. They highlighted the angles of her face and the shadows they cast. She had pushed herself to save her baby, but she had been too weak. He asked for the lights to be lifted and it gave some relief to her cheeks, but still in his eyes she looked pale.

'Clara?' he said softly and smiled when her nose twitched. 'Clara?'

She opened her dark eyes, 'Hi,' she managed and looked won into her arms. 'She ok?' she asked.

'I think so. Tired. But she's been given enough life force to…'

'Make her immortal?' Clara asked sadly.

'I don't know,' the Doctor answer honestly, 'I don't know exactly how it works, how much is needed, only the Sisterhood do and they've vanished. But I wouldn't be surprised if her lifespan equals mine at least. She may even have regeneration capabilities.'

'Right…' Clara said. She seemed deep in thought as if weighing pros and cons.

'Clara, she will be OK.'

She looked down at the sleeping child, utterly normal to the eye and the Doctor watched her face closely trying to decipher her changing emotions. She seemed to sense him.

'I'm so relieved she's OK,' Clara said. 'Missy… she told me she had been… that she brought her back.'

'It's true,'

Clara's eyes flashed in the light of the console room. 'Well why didn't you tell me? That was kind of important don't you think? Doing that sort of thing, look where it has got us before.'

'I'm sorry, really I am, but you were so weak, I didn't want you to get upset, I didn't know what to do. You'd spoken to me about your own timeline and facing death when death came, not having a right to manipulate it further… I thought…'

'You thought… what? That I would have said it was the wrong thing to do? Missy shouldn't have saved her?'

'Well yes. Consequences, as you've just pointed out, we've ended up in a mess before now Clara, and tidal waves… there's a war now that never would have been if she wasn't alive…'

She let her head fall back against the console and bit her lip in shame. 'I don't care about the war,' she confessed tiredly, 'I care about my baby.'

'But…'

'Shut up. I always would have saved her. But you should have said that was what had happened. You don't cover things like that up.'

The Doctor stared at her in complete confusion. 'I don't understand… we don't know the effect of this on her, being brought back and then on top of that all of this,' he reached for the tankard and waggled it in his hand. The contents sloshed slowly from side to side.

'I don't care,' Clara repeated, 'Whatever it is we will deal with it. She's alive.'

'What about you?' he asked starkly. Clara's jaw twitched. 'You've had your own timeline restored, the baby gave back what it took. You should have a normal lifespan… for a human. That's what you wanted.'

'Great,' she said unconvincingly, 'I know I said that before but not much bloody use though is it?'

'Clara, if it's what you want to do, I respect that. I'll always be here for our child.'

'Of course you will… you're semi-immortal,' Clara said. 'So's she,' she adjusted the baby against her chest and stroked the dark hair on her head, 'And now even Missy has boosted her own regenerations. There's all this immortality floating about, I feel left out,' she half joked.

'Don't worry about Missy…'

'Oh but I do,' Clara said.

'She's gone for now…'

'For now, yes but she will be back. This year, next year, three hundred years down the line. And I will be gone, dead and buried and she will walk into your lives again, maybe trick you into thinking she's sorry, maybe trying to kill you both. I don't know, I won't be there! I won't be there to protect my own child. She won't even remember me. She'll know more about Missy than she will about me, she might as well be her Insane Stepmother!.'

'Clara I would keep her safe…'

'I know you would but it's my job too…'

The Doctor looked down at the tankard, at the golden wisps floating from its contents.

'So you stole a backup plan?' he nodded at it.

Clara looked down. 'Yes. Yes… after everything I said about immortality… I stole enough of this stuff to make me like you. Just like you wanted.'

'That's not fair…'

'It's true though. You were terrified I'd die, you were obsessed.'

He looked down at his hands, 'Why do you always see that as a bad thing? I love you Clara, of course I want you with me, always.'

'If I do this, I do it for our daughter,' she said and he nodded feeling hurt. What about him? He needed her too.

'Its unlikely there will be anymore of this stuff,' he nodded at the tankard, 'The Flame is in a warzone now, we can't just pop in and get some from the past either, it doesn't work that way and your timeline is getting as tangled as mine.'

'So I either drink this or not,' Clara commented. 'I need to do some thinking.'

'Take your time deciding,' the Doctor advised, 'decisions don't come much bigger than this and it is a different form of immortality for that which you had before. You will feel alive, not frozen, your heart will beat.'

'There will be disadvantages too I'm sure,' Clara said.

'Immortality in itself if often a disadvantage,' the Doctor commented, 'But… she will need you, Clara, we both will.' Clara gazed into the middle distance, her hand idly stroking the baby's tummy. The Doctor put in his final plea.

'The future is a very different place now and she is right at the heart of things. When she grows up a bit… it will be harder and harder to keep her safe. I can teach her a lot of things but… she needs her mother… to teach the important bits,' he looked over at her, 'The ones she taught me.'

Her tense posture sagged a little and Clara's eyes filled with tears. She shifted so she could be closer to the Doctor. He lifted the tankard from between them and set it to one side, before cuddling her nearer and placing a careful hand over hers, over his baby. She was still asleep, but with a calmer mind, oblivious to the life ahead of her that he had seen on the screen.

'She needs a name,' Clara sad quietly.

'She does,' he agreed, 'I'm not very good with names. I don't even use mine.'

Clara smiled, 'I've got one in mind.'

'Oh?'

'Well you say I taught you the things you needed to know?'

'Yes… I still have the flashcards.'

Clara smiled, 'Well the person you taught me the essentials is the person I'd like to name her after.'

He queried with his eyebrows.

'My mum, Ellie.'

The Doctor thought about it for a moment. 'You realise that in a few dozen years time she's going to be gallivanting through the universe fighting with Reapers and armies of Judoon and she's going to be called… Ellie?'

'There's nothing wrong with that, Doctor, she doesn't have to be called 'The Oncoming Storm' to be good at fighting aliens.'

He blew out a sigh though his nose. 'No, I suppose not,' he answered. 'Ellie it is then. And I suspect Ellie would quite like some time in her crib while mummy recovers from saving the day. Come on, up you get.'

He manoeuvred her away from the console and then reached down for the tankard. 'What would you like me to do with this?' he asked. Clara turned to him from the door, their baby cradled safely in her arms.

'Just keep it safe,' she said, 'For now…'


End file.
